Who We Fund

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. Dusetzina is an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and an Ingram associate professor of cancer research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and post-doctoral training at the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard. She is a health services researcher focusing on the intersection between health policy, epidemiology, and economics related to prescription drugs. Dr. Dusetzina’s work has contributed to the evidence base for the role of drug costs on patient access to care and policy changes that might improve patient access and reduce spending on high-priced drugs, including those used to treat cancer. She has been recognized for her work at a national level, including being an invited participant for two working group meetings on “Patient Access to Affordable Cancer Drugs,” hosted by the President’s Cancer Panel, and being selected to co-author a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report on the same topic. Dr. Dusetzina was recently appointed to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and is engaged in national policy related to access to care for Medicare beneficiaries. Dr. Dusetzina will co-direct the project with Dr. Nicholas, who has considerable experience using the Health and Retirement Study to assess economic effects of health.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Making the Right Choice: Medicare Plan Selection and Access to Cancer Care

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Michael Wang, MD, is Professor of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson Cancer Center where he established the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Program of Excellence, the world’s only program dedicated exclusively to MCL research and treatment. He led trials resulting in 3 FDA approvals for MCL treatment. He leads a large lab focusing on overcoming resistance to MCL therapies and developing new ones. His detailed studies of tissue from patients with MCL has been instrumental in setting the stage for this application. Jia Zhou, PhD, is Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Apart from academia, he worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 7 years. His primary research interest is drug discovery and the development of novel small-molecule therapeutics for cancers and other diseases. He has established a fruitful collaboration with Dr. Wang and his lab and has great experience in leading both the chemical and pharmacological aspects of drug development.

Program Name(s)

Mantle Cell Lymphoma Research Initiative

Project Title

Development of novel BTK-MALT1 dual inhibitors to treat MCL

Boston Children's Hospital

Vijay G. Sankaran, MD, PhD is the Jan Ellen Paradise, MD Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an Attending Physician in the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. Dr. Sankaran's lab seeks to understand the influence of human genetic variation on blood and immune cell production in health and disease. Their work has resulted in a number of therapies for blood diseases, including work that led to the development of Casgevy for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. Dr. Sankaran has received a number of awards for his work including the 2019 Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the 2022 E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research, and 2024 Trailblazer Prize from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Inherited resilience to clonal hematopoiesis and myeloid malignancy by modifying stem cell RNA regulation

Weill Cornell Medicine

I completed my Ph.D. in pharmacology at Zhejiang University, China, in June 2020, specializing in cancer immunology. My doctoral research provided in-depth training in mouse models, particularly the construction of humanized immune recombinants such as PBMC and CD34-engrafted xenografts for pharmacodynamic studies. I developed skills in in vitro drug screening, immune cell sorting, and animal models, solidifying my expertise in experimental design. Currently, I am conducting research in Dr. Wendy Béguelin's lab, focusing on the role of the tumor microenvironment in B lymphoma progression. I pioneered a multiphoton microscopy approach for real-time imaging of cellular interactions within lymphoid tissues, enabling a detailed view of cellular interactions in lymphoma. Supported by experts from the Béguelin, Chris Xu and Melnick groups, our team leverages advanced murine lymphoma models and deep-tissue imaging techniques.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

University of Fribourg

Nicola Vannini after his MSc degree in Biological Sciences obtained at the University of Parma, moved to La Jolla (CA) where he worked for two years at the Burnham Institute in the laboratory of Prof. John C. Reed studying the metabolic basis of cardiac aging. He completed his PhD at the National Institute for Cancer Research in Genova (Italy) under the supervision of Prof. Adriana Albini, where he worked on nutritional interventions to prevent tumor progression. After his PhD he moved to EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) in the laboratory directed by Prof. Matthias Lütolf and Prof. Olaia Naveiras at the EPFL, where he developed targeted metabolic interventions to boost hematopoietic recovery.

Since March 2016 Nicola Vannini is group leader at the Ludwig Cancer Institute at the University of Lausanne . His primary research goals are the understanding of metabolic changes occurring during aging in the hematopoietic and immune compartments and their impact on cancer immunotherapy.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Mitochondrial reprogramming to restore age-driven dysfunction in T cell and boost CAR-T cell therapy

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Meng Li is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Health Services Research at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and a nonresident fellow at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California. Dr. Li completed her PhD in Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy at University of Washington, where co-PI, Dr. Flowers also completed his MS. Dr. Li’s research uses various data sources including population-based cancer registries, nationwide administrative claims databases, national survey data, and data from clinical trials and observational series to examine disease burden, factors that influence health care utilization, the effect of health care utilization on health outcomes, and the cost-sharing burden of prescription drugs. In particular, Her research has used Optum and SEER-Medicare data to examine disparity in initiation of immunotherapies among lung cancer and melanoma patients, the association between spending on several types of treatment and outcomes in breast cancer, and catastrophic spending among cancer patients on oral targeted anticancer medicines. Dr. Li has also developed methods to quantify novel elements of value for medical technologies in economic evaluations, which has important implications on the practice of value assessment. She meets regularly and collaborates with Drs. Shih and Flowers. Dr. Li’s research work has been published in top clinical, health economics, and health policy journals.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Investigating the Impact of Insurance Coverage on Access to Care and Outcomes among Lymphoma Patients

University of Southern California

Dr. Sheng Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Translational Genomics, at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC). She is the Program Co-Leader of Epigenetic Regulation in Cancer (ERC) at the USC NCI-designated Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Li received her PhD in Computational Biology from Cornell University in 2014, where she focused on the epigenome dynamics of leukemia relapse. Following her PhD, she served as an Instructor of Bioinformatics at Weill Cornell Medicine. In 2016, Dr. Li joined the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022.

In 2024, her lab transitioned to the USC Keck School of Medicine. Dr. Li leads a research program centered on understanding the impact of somatic mutations and aging on blood cancer initiation by identifying critical epigenetic aberrations that disrupt gene expression regulating hematopoiesis. Her work leverages multi-omics and integrative data mining to study how age-related inflammation shapes the evolutionary trajectories of mutant hematopoietic stem cells in leukemogenesis. The long-term goal of her research is to identify novel therapeutics to mitigate leukemogenesis and extend human health span and life span. Dr. Li recevied NextGen Star Award from American Association for Cancer Research and Maximizing Investigators' Research Award from NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Epigenetic heterogeneity in age-related clonal hematopoiesis and acute myeloid leukemia

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

I am an Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation) at Fred Hutch with clinical trial and computational expertise. I have a broad background with a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation combined with computational sciences training, including a PhD in evolutionary models of aging and a KL2 career development award focused on microbiome bioinformatics. I leverage my clinical and computational expertise to make cancer treatment safer by improving supportive care. I characterize microbiota disruptions in patients with cancer, investigate their clinical significance, and test microbiota restorative therapeutics to improve clinical outcomes. Recently, I led the largest clinical trial of FMT in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients to date. We used findings from this trial to design the proposed randomized placebo-controlled phase 2 trial of third-party FMT to prevent aGVHD after transplantation.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Fecal microbiota transplantation to prevent acute GVHD after allogeneic stem cell transplantation

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Issa is a clinical and translational researcher in the Departments of Leukemia and Genomic Medicine at the MD Anderson. His work focuses on the genetic underpinnings of leukemia to uncover therapeutic vulnerabilities, mechanisms of disease progression, and treatment response. Through this research, he aims to develop safe and effective targeted therapies

His clinical research centers on menin inhibitors. He serves as Principal Investigator on numerous investigator-initiated studies and multi-institutional trials, which led to the FDA approval off revumenib for KMT2A-rearranged acute leukemia. He is also a lead investigator or steering committee member for global phase 3 trials evaluating menin inhibition in combination with standard of care for newly diagnosed AML. Dr. Issa leads a precision medicine program for acute leukemias susceptible to menin inhibition, focusing on biomarker discovery, MRD assays, resistance mechanisms, and rational combination therapies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Advancing Precision Medicine through Menin Inhibitors in Acute Leukemia

University of California at Davis

In 1997, I began as an academic physician at UC Davis. I developed a productive, independent laboratory-based research program, and as the Director of Hematologic Malignancies Program created one of the most productive clinical trials programs at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. I currently am the deLeuze Endowed Professor for the non-toxic cure for lymphoma, Director of Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation and the interim Division Chief of Malignant Hematology Cellular Therapy and Transplantation.

My research has focused on immune-mediated therapeutics to reduce toxicity and enhance efficacy, including development of antibody drug conjugates, antibody-targeted liposomes, development of alternative natural products, and bi- and tri-specific antibodies. 

This work resulted in some 38 publications, 3 VA Merit and 12 intramural awards, and 3 patents (1 pending), which has facilitated ongoing funding of my lab and established me as an expert in targeted immuno-therapeutics.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Gene-edited CD19 CAR-T cells with superior proliferation, persistence and serial-killing activity

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

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Daniel Lucas uses microscopy to understand how blood cells are produced in the marrow of the bone and how leukemia inhibits this process. A native Spaniard, he obtained his PhD in Madrid training with Drs. Antonio Bernad and Luis Blanco. Then he moved to New York for postdoctoral training in Paul Frenette’s lab. There he discovered basic mechanisms through which the nervous system regulates blood cell production. He also identified macrophages and megakaryocytes -two types of cells produced by the blood stem cells- as key regulators of those very same blood stem cells. This was the first demonstration that the stem cells were regulated by their own progeny. He established his own research group at the University of Michigan Medical School before being recruited to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. His group has discovered mechanisms that promote faster blood recovery after transplantation and deciphered how several types of blood cells assemble in the bone marrow.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Cellular Crosstalk In The Normal And Malignant Bone Marrow