Who We Fund

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois

Caroline Arber obtained her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Basel, Switzerland, and specialized in Internal Medicine and Hematology, with a focus on hematologic malignancies and stem cell transplant. To dive into the T cell engineering field, she moved to the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor College of Medicine, USA, where she was a research fellow (2010-2014) and an Assistant Professor (2014-2017). Since 2017 she is an Associate Professor, Research Group leader and Attending Physician at the Lausanne University Hospital, University of Lausanne and Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Lausanne, Switzerland. She leads a translational research group investigating novel T cell engineering strategies for hematologic malignancies. She also studies the impact of the bone marrow immune microenvironment on outcomes of CAR T cell therapies in myeloma. She has published several last author papers in journals such as Blood, JITC, Cancer Immunology Research, Science Advances.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Designed biosensor to enhance CAR T cell therapy for multiple myeloma

Rhode Island Hospital

Adam Olszewski, MD is a hematologist and oncologist specializing in the treatment of lymphomas. He graduated from the Medical University of Warsaw, Poland, and completed his postgraduate training at Roosevelt Hospital (Mount Sinai West) in New York, NY. His is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and conducts clinical research for patients with Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas at the Lifespan Cancer Institute at Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI. He is a Research Scholar of the American Cancer Society who has also been supported by awards from the American Society of Hematology, the National Institutes of Health, and the Rhode Island Foundation. Dr. Olszewski has authored over 100 scientific publications. His current research is focused on developing immunotherapies and molecularly targeted approaches for the treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as well as genomic correlates of responsiveness to these therapies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Mosunetuzumab with lenalidomide augmentation as first-line therapy for patients with follicular and marginal zone lymphoma

University of Minnesota

Helen Parsons, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She has expertise in mixed-methods research, employing a combination of clinical registries, administrative data (e.g., Medicare), surveys and focus groups to understand how adoption of new programs and policies influence reimbursement and health outcomes, including the development and use of survey and administrative data to examine longitudinal health and psychosocial outcomes.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

The Impossible Choice: The Role of Insurance Design on Financial Toxicity and Access to Care for Individuals with Blood Cancer

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. DiNardo is an academic clinical researcher with a primary focus on individualized therapy and precision oncology for myeloid malignancies, including the optimal incorporation of genomics into standard risk assessments and treatment algorithms, and the clinical evaluation of targeted therapeutics for molecularly-defined patient subgroups.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

A precision-based all-oral combination of venetoclax, oral decitabine, and IDH1/2 targeted inhibition for patients with IDH1 or IDH2 mutated AML

University of Michigan

Dr. Jolanta Grembecka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology, University of Michigan. Dr. Grembecka’s research is focused on development of small molecule inhibitors of proteins involved in leukemogenesis. Her laboratory has developed the first small molecule inhibitors of the menin-MLL1 interaction as a treatment for acute leukemia, which were advanced to clinical studies in acute myeloid leukemia patients. Her laboratory is also developing new targeted therapies for hematologic cancers by blocking novel epigenetic targets, including ASH1L histone methyltransferase.

Dr. Grembecka has received PhD in Chemistry at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland. She completed postdoctoral training in drug discovery at the University of Virginia and in 2009 started her independent position at the University of Michigan. Dr. Grembecka is a co-author on over 80 scientific publications and an inventor on 15 patents. She is LLS Scholar and ACS Research Scholar recipient.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

ASH1L degradation as a new treatment for acute leukemia

Targeted combination therapies for leukemia with NUP98 translocations

Columbia University Medical Center

I’m a Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Program at Columbia University. I received my medical and doctorate degrees from Humboldt University. My postdoctoral training included residency and fellowship at Humboldt University and a research fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, I was the Director of the Multiple Myeloma Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

I’m an active translational researcher, serving as principal investigator for many clinical trials, including investigator-initiated studies for multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis. My translational research focuses on the identification of novel targets for the treatment of multiple myeloma, myeloma bone disease, and amyloidosis. My research is funded by multiple RO1s and awards. As a frequent lecturer, I regularly present at annual meetings of the ASH and ASCO. I have also published over 100 original articles, editorials, chapters in such prestigious journals as JCO, JCI, Blood, and Cancer Research, etc

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting the MMP-13/PD-1H signaling axis for multiple myeloma bone disease and immunosuppression

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Dr. Magee directs the pediatric leukemia and lymphoma program at Washington University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children’s Hospital. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Washington University and then completed a pediatrics residency and hematology/oncology fellowship at the University of Michigan. He conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Sean Morrison (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) at the University of Michigan and UT-Southwestern. Dr. Magee’s work focuses on causes and treatments for childhood acute myeloid leukemia. He has published several papers in high impact journals investigating interactions between genes that regulate normal childhood blood development and mutations that cause leukemia, with the goal of understanding why childhood leukemias respond differently to treatment than adult leukemias. He is also investigating changes in blood forming stem cells that lead to leukemia when children receive chemotherapy for other tumors, such as lymphomas or solid tumors.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Neonatal origins of pediatric AML

Institute of Cell Biology (Tumor Research) at the Medical school Essen

Marc Seifert graduated in Biology at the University of Cologne and did his PhD at the Institute of Cell Biology (IFZ) at the University Hospital Essen. Dr. Seiferts research group at the IFZ (Cancer Reseach) exists since 2014 and combines B cell immunology with lymphoma pathogenesis. Dr. Seiferts research aims at decoding the B cell system in healthy people and to determine the critical alterations in risk groups, such as infants and elderly or patients suffering from infections or tumors. This research unravels the B cell immune dynamics throughout life and clarifies which B cell subsets or antibody specificities are beneficial in health and limited in patients. Dr. Seiferts cancer research focusses on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, Burkitt-Lymphoma and rare entities, such as Hairy Cell Leukemia and Splenic Marginal Zone Lymphoma. Dr. Seifert habilitated in 2017 at the Biological Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen in the subjects immunology and cancer research.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

Project Title

Exploiting metabolic dependencies, tumor plasticity and their consequences for drug response of HCL

Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Dr. Erica Phillips is the Jack Fishman Professor of Cancer Prevention at Weill Cornell. She as served as the co-director for the BRIDGE program alongside Dr Leonard since the project's inception. Thus, she is equally knowledgeable about the programs accomplishments to date. The programmatic goals during this final funding year remain primarily the same, with an additional goal of formulating a new collaboration with the hematology/ oncology division at NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn led by Dr Oscar Lahoud. Dr Phillips will resume the role of the primary grantee/ principal investigator effective June 1, 2025 as Dr Leonard departs Weill Cornell. He will remain an adjunct faculty member and involved in the project.

Program Name(s)

IMPACT

Project Title

BRIDGE (Blood cancer Research Initiative Developing Greater Engagement) with community patients

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Graubert is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Hematologic Malignancy Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center where he holds the Jon and JoAnn Hagler Chair in Oncology. Dr. Graubert is a physician-scientist with a laboratory-based research focus on the genetics of myeloid malignancies, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). His group has used new technologies to identify genetic alterations in patients with MDS and AML, then created animal models to study their mechanism of action and susceptibility to novel therapies. In addition to his research, Dr. Graubert oversees faculty recruitment and development for the Hematologic Malignancy Program and provides clinical care in the Center for Leukemia. He co-leads the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Consortium Leukemia Program, is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute, and serves on scientific review panels for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the American Society of Hematology, the National Institutes of Health, and Genome Canada.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Exploiting Vulnerabilities in RNA Splicing to Treat Hematologic Malignancies

University of British Columbia

Dr. Kirk Schultz is a Professor at the University of British Columbia, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and an elected fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Dr. Schultz is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist focused on new therapies and rejection in Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BMT) and immune therapy of blood cancers. Dr. Schultz is a past recipient of the CIHR/Wyeth Clinical Research Chair in Transplantation, past chair of the Pediatric BMT Consortium the largest children’s BMT clinical trials group world-wide, and president-elect of Cell Therapy and Transplantation Canada (CTTC), the national group for Canadian cell therapy and BMT. Dr. Schultz was the co-chair of the 2020 NIH cGvHD Consensus meeting and past chair of the Biomarkers working group for the previous 2 Consensus meetings (2004 & 2014). Dr. Schultz was the Team leader for the pediatric Applied Biomarkers in Late Effects (ABLE) Team grant (2011 – 2016; $4.3M Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded). Dr. Schultz has 219 publications and 2 CIHR Grants and other smaller funding.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

A Polyomic Approach to Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease (cGvHD) Biomarkers in Adults

Emory University

Dr. Ji is a health services researcher with extensive experience leveraging insurance payer data to study policy issues pertaining to U.S. healthcare systems, with an emphasis on Medicaid. Her research strives to understand the effect of Medicaid policies on healthcare access and outcomes for vulnerable youth and adults. She recently extended this experience to data on pediatric and adolescent/young adult (AYA) cancer survivorship. She co-leads (with Dr. Sharon Castellino) NCI 1R03CA259665-01 to investigate how the Affordable Care Act affects treatment timeliness and survival in AYAs with cancer. She leads a Medicaid initiative within the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, where she oversees an ongoing linkage of administrative Medicaid data to a nationwide cohort of cancer survivors. She also leads a Junior Faculty Focused Award evaluating Medicaid coverage continuity for pediatric cancer survivors in a single institution.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Impact of Health Insurance on Mortality for Children and AYAs Newly Diagnosed with a Blood Cancer: A Population-Based Multistate Evaluation