Who We Fund

Yale University

Markus Müschen, MD-PhD is Director of the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology and the Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Professor of Hematology and Immunobiology at Yale University. Dr. Müschen’s research leverages negative selection mechanisms of the immune system for the treatment of drug-resistant B-cell leukemia and lymphoma. In addition to protective antibodies, humans produce every day about 25 million “rogue” B-cells that express potentially harmful, autoantibodies that can cause autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. To prevent pervasive autoimmune disease, a powerful mechanism, termed “negative selection”, is in place to eliminate autoreactive B-cells. Dr. Müschen’s research group discovered that “negative selection” also removes malignant B-cells that would give rise to B-cell leukemia and lymphoma. His ongoing research leverages negative selection mechanisms as a new strategy for patients with B-cell malignancies.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Mechanisms of tumor-initiation in B-lymphoid malignancies

Targeting SYK:ZAP70 coexpression in refractory B-cell malignancies

University of Florida

I am a postdoctoral research trainee at the University of Florida Health Cancer Center (UFHCC). I received a Ph.D. in Comparative Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. My graduate research focused on the use of gene editing functional screens to study a variety of cellular processes including nutrient uptake and response to toxic substances. For my postdoctoral training, I decided to study hematologic malignancies. I joined the Laboratory of Dr. Jonathan Licht at UFHCC where I started to investigate the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms underlying pathogenesis of Multiple Myeloma (MM), a cancer of plasma cells that remains incurable. My current research focuses on identification of vulnerabilities associated with recurrent genetic lesions in MM. As most MM patients ultimately relapse by developing resistance to existing therapies, the ultimate goal of my work is to identify novel therapeutic targets to reverse drug tolerance and improve therapeutic outcomes.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Investigating the Role of Adenylate Kinase 2 in Multiple Myeloma

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Philippe Armand, MD, PhD, is the Chief of the Lymphoma Division and the Harold and Virginia Lash/David Lash Chair in Lymphoma Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Armand’s research interests center on the treatment of lymphoma. His primary research focus is the study of immunotherapy to improve the efficacy of treatment and the outcome of patients with a variety of lymphoma types. Other areas of specific research interest are the study of CAR-T therapy in lymphoma and the development of next-generation assays to characterize, track and target tumors, especially aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin Lymphomas and Hodgkin Lymphoma. After earning his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University, Dr. Armand received his Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of California at San Francisco. He completed his internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and fellowship training at DFCI.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Checkpoint-Based Immunotherapy in Follicular Lymphoma

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Zhang is a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in Saint Louis. She completed her PhD in epigenetics and neuroscience at the University of Queensland (Australia) to study the long-term impact of early life epigenetic disruptions on brain structure and function. She then briefly worked to discover molecular biomarkers of pediatric acute leukemia using a targeted sequencing platform, where she developed a strong interest in identifying the mechanism underlying leukemogenesis. Since 2019, Dr. Zhang has been undertaking her postdoctoral training with Dr. Grant Challen to investigate how mutations in an epigenetic modifier DNA Methyltransferase 3A (DNMT3A) convey a fitness advantage to hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) during chronic inflammatory signaling and how this process primes clonal hematopoiesis to malignant transformation. She is currently developing her independent project in understanding the role of p53 signaling in leukemogenesis of NPM1-mutant AML.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Deciphering the role of p53 signaling in NPM1-mutant AML

The University of Melbourne

I am a bioinformatician and postdoctoral fellow at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center working in the cancer epigenetics laboratory led by Professor Mark Dawson. Through my postdoctoral and Ph.D. training, I have developed a rare and important skill set that encompasses proficiency in both molecular and computational biology. My career to date has pursued an understanding of how epigenetic mechanisms regulate gene expression in cells and how we can combine clever molecular biology with novel computational techniques to reveal new insights in these areas. In the context of cancer, I have a particular interest in haematological malignancies and seek to understand the role that epigenetics and transcriptional regulation play in the development of therapeutic resistance to conventional, targeted, and immune-based therapies. My research aims to develop novel biological and computational tools to identify and circumvent these processes for the successful treatment of cancer.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting non-genetic mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

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

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

University of California San Francisco

Dr. Smith is a physician-scientist whose laboratory focuses on therapeutic resistance mechanisms and novel treatment strategies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). She has a particular interest in AML associated with mutations in Fms-like Tyrosine Kinase-3 (FLT3), which is the most frequently mutated gene in AML and associated with resistance to conventional therapy. She has been involved in the development of multiple active FLT3 inhibitors as a clinical-translational investigator. Dr. Smith was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She attended Yale University where she majored in Chemistry, graduated cum laude, and was awarded the Howard Douglas Moore Prize for excellence in chemistry. She attended medical school at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Smith has been the recipient of numerous career development awards, including a prior Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Special Fellow in Clinical Research Award.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

SHP2 and BCL2 Inhibition in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

University of Florida

Despite Hodgkin lymphoma’s (HL) favorable prognosis, Black and Hispanic patients have worse survival rates compared to White patients. Insurance status and non-White race and ethnicity are associated with the inequitable receipt of optimal treatments, as well as survivorship care. Patients’ decision-making experiences with their clinicians influence cancer care, and shared decision-making (SDM) is central to patient-centered care when patients have multiple treatment options. However, in hematologic cancer care, many physicians underestimate patient preference for SDM, and HL survivors report minimal involvement in decision-making about their treatment and care.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Insurance Inequities in Hodgkin Lymphoma Treatment and Survivorship in the Southeast

University of Iceland

Professor Sigurður Yngvi Kristinsson is currently consolidating his position as one of the leading researchers world-wide in the field of multiple myeloma, its precursors, its epidemiology, progression, and treatment. This has been the main thrust of his scientific and clinical efforts from the time he defended his thesis on monoclonal gammopathies at the Karolinska Institutet in 2009. In 2012 he became the youngest full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland and he is a consultant at Landspitali University Hospital. He designed and leads the largest myeloma screening study in the world, the iStopMM project in which over 80,000 individuals provided informed consent. His current research group includes 7 PhD-students, three postdocs, a lab with 4 biologists, 6 research nurses, three statisticians/data manager, and five support staff. He is an author of more than 110 scientific papers including the current guidelines for myeloma treatment and follow up and has an h-index of 57.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Early Detection and Intervention in Smoldering Multiple Myeloma: population-based screening and treatment; Edit-SMM

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

I am a clinical-translational researcher focusing on new treatments for lymphomas with a particular focus on T-cell/cutaneous lymphomas. Since entering the field of hematology/oncology, I have been drawn to the study of lymphoma and the care of patients facing lymphoma given how varied these conditions are and the major unmet needs that exist. In my clinical practice, I see patients and caregivers navigating these diseases, treatments, and side effects, and this stimulates me to pursue advancements in my research endeavors. My overarching goals are to bridge laboratory investigations with work done in clinical trials towards ultimately improving and refining our therapeutic approaches for these challenging diseases.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Targeting mutant IDH2 in angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma

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