Who We Fund

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dai Chihara, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. Dr. Chihara received his MD degree from Kobe University in Japan, and completed clinical training in hematology and oncology both in Japan and the US. Dr. Chihara focuses on clinical research of lymphoma for aggressive and indolent B-cell lymphomas, and has led multiple research projects utilizing clinical data and population-based cancer registry data to identify high risk populations with poor outcomes. Dr. Chihara is currently working on discovering novel trial design and biomarkers in lymphoma through investigator initiated clinical trials at MD Anderson Cancer Center to address unmet needs for patients. Dr. Chihara has received many awards including ones from Lymphoma Research Foundation, American Society of Hematology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Biomarker and Risk Tailored Treatment to Improve Outcomes in Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma

Weill Cornell Medicine

Ramon Massoni-Badosa, PhD is a graduate of Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona in 2023, and his PhD focused on applying single-cell genomics technologies to benchmark the effect of sample preservation in single-cell RNA-seq data (Massoni-Badosa R. Genome Biol 2020), create a single-cell-driven atlas of cell types in human tonsils (Massoni-Badosa R., Immunity in press), and track the clonal evolution of CLL to Richter's syndrome (Nadeu,* Royo,* Massoni-Badosa*, Playa-Albinyana*, Garcia-Torre* Nat Med 2022). As highlighted in these three publications, he has gained extensive experience in large-scale single-cell multi-omics projects, as well as in combining computational and biological knowledge to gain biological and clinical insights. During his postdoc in the ten Hacken and Landau labs, Ramon will leverage his expertise to improve the mechanistic understanding of Richter’s syndrome, with the ultimate goal of identifying new targets to treat this incurable disease.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Uncovering MGA-driven epigenetic reprogramming in Richter's syndrome

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

I am a hematologic oncologist and cancer care delivery researcher. The focus of my research is to improve quality of life (QOL) and quality of care for patients with hematologic malignancies. I have designed, successfully applied for funding, and published many studies relating to health services and outcomes for patients with blood cancers. For example, I led the international validation of a QOL scale developed for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), the QUALMS, which has since been incorporated into several clinical trials and registries for patients with that disease. Additionally, I led a study using QOL assessment to help with transfusion decisions for patients with MDS, which is highly relevant to the final aim of my HCL 2030 proposal. I would be delighted to lead the team to complete the aims of the proposed research; moreover, the project will satisfy my goal to bring my research expertise to bear on the care that I provide for patients with hairy cell leukemia.

Program Name(s)

Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Initiative

Project Title

Quality of Life, Outcomes, and Decision Making for Patients with Hairy Cell Leukemia

TAP Partner

Solu Therapeutics is a biotechnology company dedicated to developing next-generation therapeutics to eliminate disease-driving cells in cancer, immunology and other therapeutic areas. The company’s proprietary CyTAC (Cytotoxicity Targeting Chimera) and TicTAC (Therapeutic Index Control Targeting Chimera) platforms enable the development of innovative medicines that combine the target-binding capability of small molecules with the therapeutic power of biologics.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 1 study of STX-0712, a CCR2-CyTAC monocyte depletor, in patients with CMML

Boston Children's Hospital

George Q. Daley, MD, PhD is Dean, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His research has focused on stem cell and cancer biology, with an emphasis on hematopoietic development and diseases of the bone marrow, blood and immune system. Daley earned his AB and MD degrees from Harvard and a PhD in biology from MIT. He has been a trainee, fellow and staff physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. Prior to becoming Dean at HMS, he was an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Director of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation Program of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Association of Arts and Sciences.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived CAR-T and CAR-NK Cells for Immunotherapy of Leukemia and Lymphoma

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Nicoletta Cieri is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before joining DFCI, Nicoletta obtained her MD degree summa cum laude and mention of honor, PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Clinical Specialization in Hematology summa cum laude from San Raffaele University, Italy, in 2010, 2014 and 2020, respectively. Nicoletta's research interests include genomics, proteomics, immunology and gene therapy applied to the field of onco-hematology. She is committed to define how to manipulate the immune response to recognize and eradicate hematological malignancies, while mitigating detrimental effects such as graft-versus-host disease, off-target toxicities and immune overactivation. Honors include Jon J. Van Rood Award and Basic Science Award from the European Bone Marrow Transplantation Society, Mundipharma Hematology Award from the Italian Society of Hematology, AACR-Incyte Immuno-Oncology Research Fellowship, and Helen Gurley Brown Fellowship.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

TCR-like CARs targeting GvL mHAgs for the treatment of post-transplant AML relapse

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Goyal obtained his medical school diploma from Smt. N.H.L. Municipal Medical College in Ahmedabad, India, in 2011 and moved to the US to complete a residency in Internal Medicine from Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska in 2016. He pursued a fellowship in hematology-oncology from Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota from 2016-2019. He developed a unique focus in histiocytic neoplasms, including Erdheim-Chester disease, Langerhans cell histiocytosis, and Rosai-Dorfman disease. He conducted multiple studies describing the epidemiology, treatments, and outcomes of patients with histiocytosis and led to the establishment of first of its kind multidisciplinary Histiocytosis Working Group. He has led national and international guidelines on the diagnosis and management of these rare disease entities. He was subsequently recruited to join the Hematology-Oncology division at University of Alabama at Birmingham as an Assistant Professor in 2019 where he launched the Histiocytic Disorder Survivor Study to assess long-term outcomes among individuals with histiocytic neoplasms.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

A Multi-Center, Multi-National Investigation of Survivorship and Patient-Reported Symptoms in Erdheim-Chester Disease

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Hantel is a faculty member in the Divisions of Population Sciences and Leukemia at DFCI and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on characterizing and remediating clinical trial enrollment disparities for patients with blood cancers, for which he has been awarded career development awards from the NCI (K08) and ASCO to develop and test related multilevel interventions. He also leads multicenter care delivery trials assessing social determinants of health and the impact of Duffy null phenotype on trial participation and outcomes. Work related to these projects has led to multiple publications in journals such as in JAMA, JCO, JNCI, and NEJM. He co-chairs the working group of the DFCI Clinical Trial Access Committee and serves as the Health Disparities and Leukemia Committee Liaison for the Alliance cooperative group. In his clinical role, he cares for patients with leukemia and related hematologic malignancies.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

The Collaboration and Infrastructure Program for Diversifying Blood Cancer Clinical Trials