Who We Fund

Stanford University

Dr. Collins is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Ravi Majeti’s lab at Stanford University and a senior clinical fellow in the Hematology and Oncology Department. Following her undergraduate studies at Williams College, Dr. Collins received her MD/PhD degree at the University of Michigan, where she worked with Dr. Jay Hess studying the role of collaborator proteins in HOXA9-mediated leukemic transformation. Her current research focuses on understanding mechanisms of preleukemic transformation in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) by prospectively modeling mutation acquisition in human hematopoietic stem cells. Throughout her training, Dr. Collins has remained passionate about her career as a physician-scientist, which presents the opportunity to care for patients with hematologic malignancies in the clinic, while also studying these diseases in the lab. Her ultimate goal is to identify a safe and well-tolerated therapy to selectively eradicate preleukemic stem cells and block the formation of AML.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Investigating the role of preleukemia duration and clonal burden in progression to AML

Baylor College of Medicine

I am honored and grateful to receive the Scholar Award from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This award will allow us to further investigate how metabolic pathways are used to enable epigenetic reprogramming in leukemia stem cells. These two mechanisms are dysregulated in a wide range of cancers including leukemia, and our recent studies have revealed that targeting metabolism and epigenetic regulators act synergistically to suppress leukemia. Our future studies may lead to novel strategies to treat leukemia by targeting these two mechanisms.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Synergistic targeting of metabolic and epigenetic vulnerabilities in leukemia stem cells

Northwestern

Paola Aguilar Neuville is a 3rd year medical student at Indiana University School of Medicine. As a Latina woman from a region where treatable cancers claim millions of lives, she is committed to research as a way to both give back to the community that nurtured her and have a broader impact in the field of oncology. Her research year began in July 2024 in the lab of Dr. Jaehyuk Choi at Northwestern in Chicago.

Program Name(s)

Student Mentorship and Research Training (SMART)

Project Title

Cellular and genetic drivers of Cutaneous γδ T-cell lymphomas (PCGDTL)

University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Arun Wiita is a physician-scientist and Associate Professor in the Dept. of Laboratory Medicine and Dept. of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Wiita’s research focuses on mass spectrometry-based proteomics, target discovery, protein engineering, and cellular engineering toward the development of novel therapies for blood cancers. Dr. Wiita also directs the UCSF Stephen and Nancy Grand Multiple Myeloma Translational Initiative (MMTI) Laboratory. Dr. Wiita is a prior recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator Award, among others, and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He completed his residency in Clinical Pathology at UCSF, his MD and PhD at Columbia, with graduate training in single molecule biophysics, and undergraduate studies in Chemistry at Princeton.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Optimized, computationally engineered CD70-targeting CAR-T cells for high-risk multiple myeloma

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

TAP Partner

Rgenta Therapeutics is developing a pipeline of oral, small-molecule RNA-targeting medicines with an initial focus on oncology and neurological disorders. Rgenta has a proprietary platform to mine the massive genomics data to identify targetable RNA processing events and to design small-molecule glues to modulate the interactions among the spliceosome, regulatory proteins, and RNAs. 

Rgenta is working closely with TAP to further develop RNA-targeting molecules by supporting preclinical studies with the goal of moving towards clinical development in hematological malignancies. 

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

Supporting development of RNA-targeting molecules for blood cancers

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Hormoz is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and Department of Data Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He obtained his PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard University. His postdoctoral studies were conducted jointly as a theorist at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics (UCSB), and as an experimentalist at Caltech. Hormoz lab’s mission is to control biological systems to understand life and cure disease such as cancer. His lab develops new technologies for recording and measuring the molecular states of individual cells and computational frameworks for interpreting the large data sets that these measurements generate. Dr. Hormoz’s research on blood cancers has focused on reconstructing the history of cancer in individual patients to understand when cancer first occurs and how cancer cells expand in each patient.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Predicting progression in myeloproliferative neoplasm patients by reconstructing the history of disease in each patient

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

Columbia University Medical Center

I’m a Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Program at Columbia University. I received my medical and doctorate degrees from Humboldt University. My postdoctoral training included residency and fellowship at Humboldt University and a research fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, I was the Director of the Multiple Myeloma Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

I’m an active translational researcher, serving as principal investigator for many clinical trials, including investigator-initiated studies for multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis. My translational research focuses on the identification of novel targets for the treatment of multiple myeloma, myeloma bone disease, and amyloidosis. My research is funded by multiple RO1s and awards. As a frequent lecturer, I regularly present at annual meetings of the ASH and ASCO. I have also published over 100 original articles, editorials, chapters in such prestigious journals as JCO, JCI, Blood, and Cancer Research, etc

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting the MMP-13/PD-1H signaling axis for multiple myeloma bone disease and immunosuppression

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. V. Lokesh Battula received his Ph.D. from Justus Liebig University. He is currently working as a research faculty, Associate Professor, in the Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Battula’s research is focused on development of immune therapeutic tools for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. He discovered ganglioside GD2 as a unique marker to identify cancer stem cells from primary breast tumors and cell lines. He is currently developing antibody based approaches for targeting GD2 in solid tumors. He is also interested in understanding the metabolic processes that regulate the expression of GD2 and the function of CSCs in primary tumors. His lab is working on antibody-based approaches for targeting immune checkpoint protein including B7-H3, CD47 and SIRPα in hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. These proteins play a crucial role in the inhibition of immune cells in primary tumors. He is developing therapeutic antibodies against immune checkpoint proteins that could be used in the treatment of cancer.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting immune checkpoint protein B7-H3 (CD276) in acute myeloid leukemia

Arming NK Cells to Target B7-H3+ AML Cells

Stanford

I am a hematologist/oncologist specializing in the treatment of multiple myeloma and related disorders. I am an Associate Professor in the Division of BMT/ Cell Therapy Division at Stanford University. I lead the Myeloma Disease Focused Group and am the Associate Director for Clinical Research for the Division. I have a broad research portfolio that includes clinical trials of novel therapies in myeloma, translational and outcomes research. I have a special focus on immunotherapy related research and am the principal investigator of several clinical trials of CAR-T cell therapy and bispecific antibodies in myeloma. I also co-lead a multi-center consortium of academic medical centers in the US collaborating to generate insights from real-world application of CAR-T therapy and bispecific antibodies in myeloma. I am actively involved with cooperative groups and professional societies, including holding leadership positions with the goal of advancing treatment of hematological disorders.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Improving Immunotherapy in Multiple Myeloma Through Innovative Clinical Trials, Real-World Evidence and Correlative Research

Weill Cornell Medicine

Roberta Zappasodi is an Assistant Professor of Hematology in Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology of the Department of Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College (New York, NY) and Visiting Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK, New York, NY). Her research program in cancer immunotherapy involves: 1) the study of the immune microenvironment in the pathogenesis of B-cell lymphomas and in the response of these diseases to immunotherapy; 2) the role of B-cell responses in the anti-tumor activity of immune checkpoint blockade therapy; and 3) the definition of T-cell-mediated suppressive mechanisms as targets and biomarkers of immunotherapy.

The overall goal of her research is to identify biomarkers of immune and anti-tumor activity with immediate clinical application and to improve the understanding of the mechanisms underlying resistance to immunotherapy.

She is a Bridge Fellow in the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Dr. Zappasodi completed her PhD in Tumor Immunology/Immunotherapy at the National Cancer Institute of Milan (Milan, Italy) and was the recipient of a Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Scholar Award during her post-doctoral training at MSK in the Wolchok/Merghoub group.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Restoring lymphoma immunosurveillance by combined EZH2 inhibition and immunotherapy