Who We Fund

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

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

Project Title

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

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

I am a pediatric oncologist, who is interested in using the patient’s immune system to fight cancer. I grew up in Germany and moved to the US in 1992 after obtaining my medical degree. After completing my training in pediatric and oncology, I became faculty at the Cancer Center of Texas Children’s Hospital and the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine. In the laboratory I focused on developing immune cell therapies for cancer patients, which I translated with my research team into the clinic. In addition, I managed pediatric cancer patients, who underwent bone marrow transplantation, and participated in numerous clinical studies. In 2017 I became Chair of the Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The department focuses on evaluating novel transplant and cell therapy approaches using genetic engineering approaches to augment the ability of the immune system to fight cancer.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

CD70-directed CAR T-cell therapy for the treatment of relapsed/refractory pediatric AML

Northwestern University

I began my scientific career in the Marchesi laboratories (Yale, 1982-1985) and then as an undergraduate under Don Wiley (Harvard, 1986-1988). I entered the Medical Scientist Training Program (1988-1995) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), performing doctoral research with Harold Varmus, at UCSF and the NIH. I defended my thesis at UCSF and completed medical training at Northwestern (1996-1997). I was an Internal Medicine house officer and Hematology/Oncology fellow at Univ of Chicago (UofC, 1997-2003)then stayed on as a UofC faculty member as a physician-scientist, with both research and clinical responsibilities (2003-2023).

Effective April 1, 2023, I have joined the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University as the inaugural director of the Jeff and Marianne Silver Family Blood Cancer Institute of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. I will also serve as Clinical Director of Cancer Genetics.

I derive synergy between bench research and the bedside to understand disease on a molecular level. This proposal seeks to understand how inherited DNA changes influence the development of bone marrow cancers, with the goal of developing interventions that would prevent cancers in at-risk individuals to make my job as an oncologist obsolete.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

CHEK2 as a predisposition gene for clonal hematopoiesis and hematopoietic malignancies

Weizmann Institute of Science

Liran I. Shlush M.D. Ph.D. is a Senior Scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Department of Immunology and a visiting hematologist at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Princess Margaret Cancer Center, and the hematology department Rambam healthcare campus Haifa Israel. His research and clinical activities are focused on the early stages of leukemia. Dr. Shlush and colleagues identified the human pre-leukemic stem cells and proved that a latent period in which stem cell acquire mutations exists. These preleukemic stem cells give rise to AML and other blood malignancies and can be identified years before diagnosis. Recently, his group was able to predict AML years before diagnosis by analyzing molecular signatures among healthy individuals. In this study specific mutations found among healthy individual predicted AML. Some of these mutations, specifically, in the spliceosome machinery can be targeted and we are now working on designing the clinical trials for AML prevention.

Program Name(s)

RTFCCR/LLS Prevention

Project Title

Early diagnosis and treatment of pre-leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Hayden Bell is a research fellow in Dr. Andrew Lane’s lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. He is focusing on the application of novel research techniques to discover cures for blood cancers. In his PhD research, he identified novel drug combinations for the treatment of high-risk and relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). He also developed a cutting-edge pipeline allowing large-scale drug screening of primary leukemias using machine learning which is helping other researchers in the battle against leukemias. Now, Hayden is applying his leukemia biology expertise to other high-risk blood cancers including acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He is specifically focused upon sex-biased drivers and dependencies in myeloid disease, and how these might afford new opportunities for novel treatments.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

How does loss of chromosome Y perturb blood cell biology and create therapeutic vulnerabilities in acute myeloid leukemia?

Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope

Dr. Danilov earned his medical degree and PhD in Physiology in Russia. He is a physician-scientist with background in molecular biology and oncologic drug development and expertise in cancer cell signaling. He leads an independent research program in hematologic malignancies which bridges the understanding of B-cell biology with early clinical evaluation of novel therapeutics.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Overcoming ibrutinib resistance in mantle cell lymphoma

Enhancing efficacy of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Emory University

I am a cancer biologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine. I am a recipient of the Lexie Clayton Impact Award from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. My research focus includes understanding how metabolic states regulate specific cancer hallmarks such as the evasion of cell death; proliferation and growth; and invasion and metastasis to identify targetable metabolic vulnerabilities. We have an interest in investigating how mitochondrial metabolism impacts multiple myeloma therapy efficacy and more recently are examining how the bone marrow niche is regulated by neural signaling. My research lab comprised of talented scientist trainees, who in collaboration with the Winship team of multiple myeloma physicians and scientists are endeavoring to ask provocative and innovative questions for curing multiple myeloma.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Deciphering the metabolic basis for t(11;14) multiple myeloma venetoclax sensitivity

Investigating anti-neoplastic effects of beta blockers in multiple myeloma

Houston Methodist Research Institute

I am a translational tumor immunologist. I have 30 years of experience as a well-funded and published researcher and am one of the leading investigators in the fields of tumor immunology in myeloma and other cancers. My laboratory has been working on: (1) characterizing myeloma- and tumor-specific T cells and their subsets and examining their functions, (2) identifying novel myeloma-associated antigens and better methods for immunotherapy, (3) investigating the cross-talk between the tumor microenvironment (TME) and immune system, (4) conducting clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of immunizing patients with idiotype or dendritic cell-based vaccines, and (5) exploring immunotherapies using myeloma antigens such as DKK1. Our recent research focuses on: (a) developing novel therapeutic mAbs and CAR-T cells for cancers, (b) identifying T-cell subsets that have potent antitumor effects after adoptive transfer, and (c) identifying TME components that induce tumor drug resistance.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Developing Novel CAR-T Cell Therapy For Hematologic Malignancies

The Ohio State University

I am a tenured Professor in the Division of Hematology at The Ohio State University, with a focus on translational research in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, the Associate Director for Clinical Research within the Division of Hematology, the Section Head for the CLL/Hairy cell leukemia group, and the co-leader of the Leukemia Research Program within the OSUCCC. I am the PI for multiple early-stage clinical trials investigating novel targeted therapies for CLL and other hematologic malignancies, chaired the intergroup Phase III study A041202 which investigated chemoimmunotherapy versus targeted therapy as initial therapy for older adults with CLL, and now chair A041702 which is investigating continuous versus intermittent targeted therapy in the same patient population. My laboratory research focuses on resistance to targeted therapies in CLL. Our group identified C481S and PLCG2 mutations as the primary resistance mechanisms for covalent BTK inhibitors and were the first to investigate reversible BTK inhibitors preclinically as a strategy to circumvent BTK inhibitor resistance.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Overcoming BTK Inhibitor Resistance in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Inhibition of PKCβ as a strategy for BTK inhibitor refractory CLL

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

Dr. Daniel Pollyea has received degrees from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Stanford University. He served as Chief Medical Resident at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He has been the Principal Investigator for multiple early-phase clinical trials and been involved in the clinical development and approval of four drugs for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, spoken to audiences around the world about this work, and is currently the Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines Committee on AML. His work involves developing ways to target leukemia stem cells in patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Eradication can result in deep and durable remissions, or even cures. His team’s efforts have involved identifying vulnerabilities in the ways that leukemia stem cells process energy. These weaknesses can be specifically exploited with novel drug therapies, and Dr. Pollyea is focused on developing and running clinical trials that use these agents to target these weaknesses.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting Leukemia Stem Cells in the Clinical Setting: The Development of A Comprehensive Program

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Kimberly Stegmaier, MD, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the Ted Williams Chair at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has advanced the application of genomics to drug and protein target discovery for leukemia. She is the Vice-Chair for Pediatric Oncology Research, Co-director of the Pediatric Hematologic Malignancy Program, a pediatric oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute. She’s the recipient of the Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement from the American Society of Hematology, a SU2C Innovative Research Grant, the E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics, and an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award. She was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. She received her undergraduate degree from Duke University where she graduated valedictorian, medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and trained in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Program Name(s)

Dare to Dream

Advancing New Therapeutic Strategies for Pediatric Acute Leukemias