Who We Fund

Moffitt Cancer Center

Eric Padron, MD is an Associate Member and Scientific Director of the Department of Hematology at Moffitt Cancer Center (MCC). He completed a hematology oncology fellowship and was recruited to MCC in 2013. Dr. Padron’s research focus has centered on studying clonal hematopoiesis (CH) and chronic myeloid neoplasms across the translational research spectrum. Importantly, he has published seminal work establishing key biologic features, novel treatments, and clinical trials in CMML. Further, Dr. Padron is an R37 MERIT awardee from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for his work in chronic myelomonocytic leukemia and has published more than 175 peer reviewed articles describing advances in myeloid malignancies and hematologic conditions, including CH. Dr. Padron is among the few physician-scientists with experience both in leading multi-institution trials and a successful NCI funded laboratory making him uniquely suited to lead this proposal.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Project Title

Advancing the therapeutic landscape for Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia (CMML)

Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research

Jae Park, MD is an Attending Physician and Chief of Cellular Therapy Service, and a Director of Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Park has written over 100 peer-reviewed articles appearing in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, Blood, Cancer Discovery and Journal of Clinical Oncology focused on developing effective and safe targeted and immunotherapies and conducting translational studies. To this end, he has successfully conducted over 15 investigator-initiated therapeutic trials in the field of hematologic malignancies and cellular therapy with grant supports from ASH, LLS, ASCO, AACR and NCCN. He is widely recognized as one of the world experts in the field of CAR T cell therapies and ALL and is the leading PI of clinical trials in patients with ALL and CLL/NHL using CAR T, NK cell therapies, BiTEs, IDCs, targeted agents, and immunomodulators.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Initiative

Project Title

IL7 receptor-targeted CAR T-cell Therapy for T-Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL)

Developing novel therapeutic approaches for classical and variant hairy cell leukemia

Virginia Commonwealth University

Venkata Battula, Ph.D., serves as Assistant Director of Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination (CRTEC) program and is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the VCU School of Medicine. He joined VCU Massey from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he was an Associate Professor in the Departments of Leukemia and Breast Medical Oncology within the Division of Cancer Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. in Human Cell Biology from Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, and brings extensive expertise in translational cancer research.

Dr. Battula’s research focuses on understanding how cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy, radiation, and targeted therapies; identifying novel drug resistance mechanisms; and developing new combination therapies. His work has been instrumental in identifying GD2 as a novel marker in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive subtype with limited treatment options. GD2, expressed on cancer stem cells, is associated with tumor growth and poor clinical outcomes. Building on these findings, Dr. Battula recently secured funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to initiate a clinical trial targeting GD2 in TNBC.

In his role within CRTEC, Dr. Battula is committed to expanding graduate-level training opportunities and advancing programs that prepare the next generation of cancer researchers.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Arming NK Cells to Target B7-H3+ AML Cells

Stanford University

Ravi Majeti MD, PhD is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor, Professor of Medicine (Hematology), and Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was an undergraduate at Harvard, earned his MD and PhD from UCSF, trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and completed his Hematology Fellowship at Stanford. While at Stanford, he completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Irving Weissman, where he investigated AML stem cells. Dr. Majeti directs an active NIH-funded laboratory that focuses on the molecular characterization and therapeutic targeting of leukemia stem cells in human hematologic disorders, particularly AML, and has published >120 peer-reviewed articles. He is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists, the Blood Cancer United Scholar Award, and the McCulloch and Till Award from ISEH.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting the inflammatory GM-CSF pathway in high risk CMML

Therapeutic Targeting of DOCK1 for Prevention of Clonal Expansion of TP53-Mutant Clonal Hematopoiesis and Treatment of TP53-Mutant AML

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

I graduated from Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons, where I stayed for Internal Medicine residency training/chief residency before moving to Boston for fellowship training in hematology/oncology at Dana-Farber/Mass General Cancer Center. I stayed on as faculty in the lymphoma program at Dana-Farber and am now an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  My research interests are in the clinical and translational study of immunotherapies for lymphoma, with a particular interest in cellular immunotherapies. I also serve as the Medical Director of the Immune Effector Cell Therapy program at Dana-Farber, which houses our commercial and research cell therapy programs across the Institute.  I am the principal investigator of industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated clinical trials involving cellular therapies for lymphoma, and lead retrospective and translational studies to identify mechanisms of response and resistance to these therapies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

CAR T-cell therapy in central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma: a study in safety and efficacy and a model in which to study mechanisms of neurotoxicity

Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology

Dr. Yubin Zhou is a professor of Translational Cancer Research at the Texas A&M University Institute of Biosciences and Technology. He is interested in pioneering chemical and synthetic biology approaches to interrogate tumorigenesis, and developing targeted therapeutics for hematological malignancies. Dr. Zhou received his medical training/internship in internal medicine (1998-2003), and earned his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry/Virology (2008) from Georgia State University. He thereafter received his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School (2008-2010) and then worked as an instructor at La Jolla Institute for Immunology/UCSD (2010-2012). Dr. Zhou was the recipient of the Blood Cancer United Fellow Award, Special Fellow Award, the TAMU Research Excellence Award, the ACS Research Scholar Award, and the Presidential Impact Fellow, Protégé member the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science & Technology, and elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Development of mutant GTPase-specific degraders for peripheral T cell lymphoma treatment

The Brigham & Women's Hospital

Dr. Peter van Galen is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he develops improved treatments for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and related blood disorders. His research focuses on how blood stem cells age and how AML develops and progresses. His laboratory identifies unique properties of leukemia cells, such as how they survive stress and produce new proteins—processes that may reveal new ways to selectively eliminate AML cells. His team has also developed technologies to track single cancer cells over the course of disease, including rare cells that remain after treatment. These studies can uncover proteins that may be targeted to eradicate persistent leukemia cells. In addition to his research, Dr. Van Galen is committed to creating a supportive lab environment and mentoring trainees, with the goal of advancing science and improving patient care.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Identification of leukemia cell-specific vulnerabilities by tracking disease evolution

University of Miami

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

Columbia University Medical Center

Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD, Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, is the founder and Director of the Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University. He has dedicated his 40-year long career to the study of the pathogenesis of B cell malignancies, including B Cell Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and contributed significantly to the understanding of the genetics and biology of these diseases, as quoted in major textbooks of medicine and oncology. These studies have direct impacts on the diagnostics and therapeutic targeting of B cell cancers. His work is widely recognized by numerous National and International prizes and awards, including the 2006 William Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology and the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research GHA Clowes Memorial Award. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Genomics of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma: pervasive role of super-enhancer hypermutation in dysregulating oncogene expression

Yale University

I received my BS in biochemistry from Gonzaga University and my PhD in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology under the guidance of Dr. Melissa Jurica at UC Santa Cruz. In the Jurica lab, I studied RNA splicing, the fundamental process of removing non-coding pieces of RNA from regions which code proteins. My dissertation focused on the characterization of an RNA helicase and its role in early spliceosome assembly. Early spliceosomal proteins are commonly mutated in human diseases such as blood cancers, but until recently, scientists did not have the tools to allow for dissection of the mechanisms involved. I chose to pursue my postdoctoral training in a blood cancer lab to dive deep into the role of splicing factor mutations in myelodysplastic syndromes and leukemia. I seek to apply my expertise in RNA processing biochemistry to blood cancers with the goal to contribute to better understanding and novel therapeutic approaches.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Revisiting splicing factor mutations in MDS/AML – delving deep and wide

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

I am the Senior Vice President for Drug Discovery and Chief Research Strategy Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a pediatric oncologist. I lead a 20-member lab delineating the biology of leukemia and developing new therapeutic approaches, particularly for childhood cancers, chromatin-based gene expression in cancer and stem cells. We demonstrated that stem and progenitor cells can initiate cancer and that chromatin-based mechanisms drive tumorigenesis, offering new therapeutic targets. Our work on DOT1L and Menin inhibitors led to clinical trials for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) in children and adults, and revumenib, a Menin inhibitor, was recently approved by the FDA for treating KMT2A-rearranged and NPM1-mutant AML in children and adults.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Mechanisms of Menin Inhibitor Resistance Driven by Mutations in the KMT2A–Menin–LEDGF Chromatin Complex

University of California, San Francisco

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Towards Risk-Adapted Therapeutic Strategies in CNS Lymphoma