Who We Fund

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Lindsley is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Immunology from Washington University School of Medicine, then completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a member of the MDS Genetics Subcommittee for the NIH National MDS Study, NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine Steering Committee, and the International Working Group for Prognosis in MDS (IWG-PM) molecular committee. The primary focus of his laboratory is the biology and treatment of myeloid malignancies. His genetic studies have led to new genomic models of leukemia classification and MDS outcome after stem cell transplantation. His laboratory uses mouse and cell line models to dissect the mechanistic basis of genetic cooperation during myeloid disease progression, with a specific focus on leukemia initiation in patients with predisposition syndromes and mutations that cause epigenetic alterations.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Genetic pathways of myeloid transformation and treatment response

TAP Partner

Auron is a platform-powered company targeting cell-state plasticity to improve patient outcomes in oncology and inflammatory disease. Auron uses AI and machine learning to compare cell states and identify novel drug targets, optimal development models, and biomarkers to facilitate proper patient selection, ultimately accelerating the development of effective and durable therapies. 

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 1 study of AUTX-703, a KAT2A/B degrader, in patients with AML or MDS

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Carroll is a physician scientist who has been studying leukemia biology for 3 decades.  Until recently Dr. Carroll saw patients with blood cancers at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital but is now focused solely on research to improve therapy for AML. He has performed that research at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania since 1998.  Dr. Carroll has had a long term commitment to building tools to enhance the understanding of human AML.  These tools have included development of a large tissue bank of patient samples. He has also lead the field in development and application of the study of AML in immunocompromised mice.  His work in xenograft AML models lead to the characterization of chemotherapy resistance as not always being dependent on leukemic stem cells but on metabolic adaptations of the cells to chemotherapy.  Dr. Carroll has been involved in development of previous novel therapies for AML and continues to focus on developing safer and more effective treatments.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Precision Targeting of Metabolism and Mitochondria for Chemotherapy Resistance in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Philippe Armand obtained his MD and PhD (in Biomedical Sciences) from the University of California San Francisco. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2004, and a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in 2007. Since then, he has worked in the Stem Cell Transplantation and Lymphoma Divisions at DFCI. He is currently a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Institute Physician at DFCI, the Harold and Virginia Lash/David Lash Chair in Lymphoma Research, and the Chief of the Division of Lymphoma. His clinical practice is solely focused on patients with lymphoma. His research interests center on the development of novel therapeutics and assays in lymphoma, with a key focus on the translation of local laboratory research to novel clinical trials. He actively mentors many junior investigators, both fellows and junior faculty, in both clinical care and clinical research.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Bispecific antibody-based frontline therapy for follicular lymphoma

Fondazione Centro San Raffaele

Dr. Matteo Bellone obtained an M.D. degree (with honors) and was Board Certified in Allergology and Clinical Immunology at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. He had a 3-year post-doctoral training at the University of Minnesota working on autoimmunity with Bianca Conti-Fine. Since the early nineties he has been investigating interactions between cancer and immune cells with discoveries leading to several clinical outputs. He is Head of the Cellular Immunology Unit at Ospedale San Raffaele (Milan, Italy), where he also practices as Clinical Immunologist. He is adjunct professor of Immunology at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Associate Editor at Frontiers in Immunology and Frontiers in Oncology, and member of several boards serving scientific journals and charities. He is Secretary and Treasurer of the Network Italiano per la BioTerapia dei Tumori (NIBIT), Council Member of the European Network for Cancer Immunotherapy (ENCI), and member of the SIICA, and the AACR.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Gut microbiota modulation to prevent progression of smoldering multiple myeloma to active disease

Massachusetts General Hospital

Subha was born and raised in India where he completed his Masters in Biochemistry from the University of Calcutta, India. Thereafter, he joined the Ph.D. program at Institute of Life Sciences, to pursue a career in research. His past research work focused on the role of chromatin remodelling complexes in guiding differentiation  programs and lineage choices in hematopoiesis, and how these epigenetic switches can contribute to leukemic transformation. Presently, he is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Peter Miller's lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  Menin inhibitors (MIs), have recently emerged as an exciting new modality for treating AML. However, MIs are not curative and associated with toxicities like differentiation syndrome. His overachieving goal here is to dissect mechanisms of MIs and come up with combination strategies/targets that can improve the efficacy of MIs in order to achieve profound and long lasting responses in AML patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging p53 to Improve Menin Inhibition in Leukemia Therapy

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Dr. Trent Hall is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. John Crispino at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. Dr. Hall received his doctorate from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2020 studying hematopoietic stem cell development in Dr. Shannon McKinney-Freeman’s laboratory. Dr. Hall’s current research interests include predisposition to myeloid malignancies and hematopoietic development.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Identifying novel regulators of leukemic progression in GATA2-deficiency syndrome

Monash University

Professor Jake Shortt is a clinician scientist who is co-appointed by Monash Health as Director of Clinical Haematology and by Monash University as the Head of Haematology Research at the School of Clinical Sciences. Monash Health provides lymphoma services to the largest Australian healthcare network in the Australian state of Victoria. He is also an Honorary Clinical Professor at the Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, University of Melbourne.

Professor Shortt is group leader of the 'Blood Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory' at Monash, seeking to discover and translate new lymphoma treatments to the clinic. As a clinician scientist his research covers the full translational spectrum from scientific discovery to advanced clinical trials and registry initiatives. For more than a decade his research has focussed on poor-risk lymphoid cancers, particularly those hallmarked by activation of a gene called 'MYC' which features in some of the most aggressive lymphomas.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Exploiting escape from Y-inactivation as a synthetic dependency in MYC-driven lymphoma

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Monika Mittal is a dedicated researcher specializing in cancer biology, with a focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML). With a strong background in molecular biology and biochemistry, Dr. Mittal aims to uncover the underlying mechanisms of blood cancers and develop innovative therapeutic strategies. Currently, Dr. Mittal is investigating the role of DCAF15, a protein that regulates cellular processes, to understand its impact on AML progression and treatment. By employing advanced techniques such as gene editing and targeted protein degradation, Dr. Mittal aims to create new therapeutic strategies that can improve patient outcomes. Passionate about translating scientific discoveries into clinical applications, Dr. Mittal is committed to improving outcomes for those affected by blood cancers, driving research forward to find more effective treatments for AML. Through collaboration and innovation, Dr. Mittal hopes to make a meaningful difference in the fight against leukemia.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging the ubiquitin proteasome system for targeted therapy in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Virginia Commonwealth University

Venkata Battula, Ph.D., serves as Assistant Director of Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination (CRTEC) program and is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine. He joined VCU Massey from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he was an Associate Professor in the Departments of Leukemia and Breast Medical Oncology within the Division of Cancer Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. in Human Cell Biology from Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, and brings extensive expertise in translational cancer research.

Dr. Battula’s research focuses on understanding how cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy, radiation, and targeted therapies; identifying novel drug resistance mechanisms; and developing new combination therapies. His work has been instrumental in identifying GD2 as a novel marker in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive subtype with limited treatment options. GD2, expressed on cancer stem cells, is associated with tumor growth and poor clinical outcomes. Building on these findings, Dr. Battula recently secured funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to initiate a clinical trial targeting GD2 in TNBC.

In his role within CRTEC, Dr. Battula is committed to expanding graduate-level training opportunities and advancing programs that prepare the next generation of cancer researchers.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Arming NK Cells to Target B7-H3+ AML Cells

Atrium Health Foundation

I am a physician scientist, specializing in lymphoma therapy. My area of research is focused on the development of new therapeutic approaches in lymphoma by engineering special nanoparticle-based drug-delivery platforms. My team has pioneered a novel high-precision drug delivery system using “click chemistry”, which is composed of high-affinity binding chemical couples. By using this novel technique, we have shown an 8-fold increase in tumor uptake of small molecule drugs compared to the conventional drug delivery, with no discernable toxicity in lymphoma models. My second major area of research involves cell signaling pathways, and their impact on lymphoma cell survival. If this novel targeted therapy platform proves successful, pretargeted nanoparticle approach can be utilized to enhance the potency and precision of small molecule drugs for treatment of relapsed mantle cell lymphoma and transformed follicular lymphoma, which are associated with chemoresistance and poor prognosis.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Next-Generation Targeted Therapy in Mantle Cell Lymphoma and Transformed Follicular Lymphoma

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr. Meshinchi and Dr. Locatelli will serve as co-PIs.

Dr. Meshinchi, a pediatric oncologist and stem cell transplant physician at Fred Hutch, has 25 years of experience in AML biology and novel therapeutics. He led AML biology efforts for Children's Oncology Group (COG) for over two decades and identified several AML-specific targets, including mesothelin, now in clinical development.

Dr. Locatelli, Director of Pediatric Oncology at Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital (OPBG) in Italy, is one of the most renowned oncologists in the world. He is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the treatment of pediatric leukemias, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and immunotherapies including CAR-T cell therapy. As chair of the Italian Association for Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (AIEOP) AML working party, he has positioned OPBG at the forefront of early-phase CAR-T trials for pediatric cancers, offering hope to children with otherwise untreatable cancers.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Novel Immunotherapeutic Development in Childhood AML

Multi-modal Immunotherapeutic Targeting of AML-restricted Targets in Infants and Children

Novel immunotherapeutic strategies in infants with high risk AML