Who We Fund

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

My research interests are the identification of genetic alterations responsible for leukemia and lymphoma development and the elucidation of the mechanisms leading to transformation in lymphoid diseases. My academic training and research experience give me an excellent background in multiple biological disciplines including cellular and molecular biology and genetics. I completed my PhD at the INSERM in France where I demonstrated the cooperation between an activating mutation of Jak3 and trisomy 21 in the development of cutaneous T cell lymphoma. I also identified a major cooperative role for the RAS/MAPK signaling pathway in the development of Down syndrome-associated B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, under the mentorship of Dr. Teresa Palomero, and I study the mechanisms of transformation in Peripheral T-cell lymphoma using multidisciplinary approaches from animal models to transcriptomic and epigenomic analysis.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Role of ID2 in mature T-cell lymphoma

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Dr. Urvi Shah is an Assistant Attending in the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology and received a Master of Science degree in Clinical and Translational Cancer Research. Her research interests include modifiable risk factors (diet, metabolism, microbiome) in cancer. She completed the first pilot nutrition trial in plasma cell disorders to date (NUTRIVENTION) and has 3 other dietary trials enrolling. Dr. Shah has been supported by career development awards (National Cancer Institute [NCI] K12, International Myeloma Society and American Society of Hematology [ASH] Scholar) and research awards (ASH CRTI, ECOG ACRIN Young Investigator Translational Research, Henry Moses, Celgene Future Leaders in Hematology, NCI Early Investigator Advancement Program and Clinical Cancer Research Early Career). She has published papers in prominent journals and has been an invited speaker and chair.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

A Decentralized Randomized High-Fiber Dietary Trial to Improve Outcomes in Newly Diagnosed Myeloma

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

I am an Assistant Professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) specializing in clinical investigations of CLL. Until 2021, I served as PI of investigator-sponsored studies at the NIH, including two trials specifically designed for CLL patients with high-risk genomic features. These efforts provided the largest and longest follow-up experience available for TP53 aberrant CLL treated with ibrutinib and revealed BTK mutations leading to treatment resistance. My immediate research goal is to apply the skills and knowledge learned from the previous work to investigate mechanisms of drug resistance emerging after targeted combination therapy. I have established collaboration with other investigators and am prospectively collecting research samples from a phase 2 study of zanubrutinib and venetoclax (NCT05168930). I envision data from the study will establish genomic markers as a decision-making tool that informs the selection of treatment regimens and modification of treatment duration.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Clinical and molecular determinants of CLL eradication with targeted combination therapy

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. Konopleva is a Director of the Acute Leukemia Program and a Co-Director of the Translational Blood Cancer Institute at Einstein/Montefiore Cancer Center, NY. The PI is a physician-scientist with an active clinical practice where she treats MDS/AML patients on a routine basis outpatient and inpatient. She directs laboratory studying at understanding the pathogenesis and chemoresistance of AML and MDS stem/progenitor cells, with focus on metabolic and apoptosis regulators. Dr. Konopleva has joined Montefiore-Einstein in summer 2022 after long successful career as a physician-scientist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. She has brought multiple targeted agents from pre-clinical investigations into clinical trials, most notable BCL-2 inhibitor Venetoclax which in combination with low-intensity therapies has become a standard of care for older AML patients unfit for intensive chemotherapy and is being studied in high-risk MDS.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting metabolic reprogramming in MDS and AML stem/progenitor cells

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

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

University of California, San Francisco

I am a postdoctoral researcher at UCSF, aiming to advance proteomic technologies for target discovery and redefine immunotherapy in blood cancers. In Dr. Arun Wiita's lab, I focus on identifying novel surface antigens in hematological malignancies like AML and multiple myeloma. By combining proteomics with immunotherapy strategies, I aim to bridge scientific discovery and clinical applications, improving outcomes for patients. My PhD in clinical proteomics from IIT-Bombay provided a foundation in biomarker discovery and translational research. I specialize in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, applying quantitative and targeted approaches to explore cancer proteomes and identify "proteoforms" as therapeutic targets. Building on promising data, my research explores surface protein post-translational modifications as a new class of immunotherapy targets, positioning me to become an independent investigator developing breakthrough therapies for blood cancers.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

“Open-Surfaceomics” for Identifying Novel Surface PTMs as Immunotherapy Targets in AML

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

Stanford University

I am a physician-scientist and an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (BMT&CT). Clinically, I care for patients with high-risk lymphoma and other blood cancers. I am the principal investigator of clinical trials investigating novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for the treatment of relapsed and refractory leukemia and lymphoma. These trials, in part, provide the critical and precious patient samples that are the subject of my laboratory-based research efforts. My research group is dedicated to understanding the clinical outcomes of our patients who receive these immunotherapies with the goal of improving clinical response while minimizing toxicity.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Autologous CD22 CAR T cell Therapy for the Treatment of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

Ana Vujovic is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She completed her PhD under the mentorship of Dr. Kristin Hope at the University of Toronto and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, where she studied the role of post-transcriptional regulation in hematopoietic and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) stem cells. Ana joined the laboratory of Dr. Craig T. Jordan in the Spring of 2023, where her postdoctoral studies are focused on investigating metabolic vulnerabilities in AML stem cells and in particular mechanisms that underlie the resistance of these cells to the combination therapy, Venetoclax and Azacitidine (Ven/Aza). The objective of her postdoctoral research is to identify novel therapeutic strategies to uniquely target the metabolic vulnerabilities of Ven/Aza-resistant AML stem cells with the goal of improving AML patient outcomes.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Investigating the dependency for protein synthesis in Venetoclax/Azacitidine-resistant acute myeloid leukemia

TAP Partner

Faron is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on building the future of immunotherapy by harnessing the power of the immune system to tackle cancer and inflammation. The precision immunotherapy in clinical development has the potential to provide permanent immune stimulation for difficult-to-treat cancers through targeting myeloid function.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 2 study of Bexmarilimab, an anti-Clever1 monoclonal antibody, in combination with azacitidine in patients with high-risk MDS

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