Who We Fund

University of Southern California

I am a genetic epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at the USC Keck School of Medicine. During my PhD, my research was focused on genetic variation and its role in human disease, and I received training in genetic epidemiology. Keen to pursue a career in childhood cancer research, I obtained a postdoctoral position at UCSF studying the etiology of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer. In 2018, I started a faculty position at USC, where I lead epidemiology studies of ALL in high-risk populations, including Hispanic/Latinos and children with Down syndrome. My research has led to several novel discoveries, identifying new genetic risk factors for ALL and shedding light on how Down syndrome increases leukemia risk. Understanding the causes of childhood ALL is my life’s work, with the hope that our discoveries will help to develop precision prevention strategies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging Susceptible Populations and Unique Resources in a Pathway to Prevention of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute

Ari Melnick, MD, is the Laurel Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology and Professor of Immunology and Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Melnick’s research interests include epigenetic mechanisms, biology, immunology and molecular targeting of B-cell lymphomas and acute leukemias. He developed novel therapies to correct aberrant transcriptional regulation and signaling that have led to early and late phase clinical trials and FDA approvals.  Dr. Melnick has authored more than 340 published manuscripts in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Cancer Discovery, etc. He was the 2016 ICML Bonadonna Lecturer and recipient of the 2020 Beutler Prize for Translational Reasearch from the American Society of Hematology.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

Molecular Pathogenesis and Therapeutic Targets for Transformed Marginal Zone and BN2 Lymphomas

Ari Melnick

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

I am a scientist of Indian origin who moved to the US upon completion of a Master’s in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology degree. I obtained my PhD in Cancer Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the laboratory of Dr. Rob Welner. My PhD project focused on identifying basic mechanisms of drug resistance in blood cancer stem cells. This work culminated in 4 first author and 9 co-author publications. To gain experience in translational research, grant writing and mentoring, I am pursuing postdoctoral studies with Dr. Craig Jordan at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Here, I am leveraging my training in blood cancer and stem cell biology to identify new approaches for targeting malignant stem cells in myelodysplastic syndrome. This training will help me achieve my long-term goal of establishing an independent translational research program to improve outcomes for blood cancer patients and mentor students interested in pursuing a blood cancer research career.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Nicotinamide metabolism is essential for myelodysplastic syndrome stem and progenitor cell function and survival

The George Washington University

Dr. Vichare’s research investigates the impact of health policies on health equity. Her training as primary care physician and health services researcher, and professional experiences shape her research approaches. Her recent studies in collaboration with Dr. Luo and Ms. Erikson utilize Medicaid claims and generate foundational evidence on health workforce in Medicaid. She implements creative analytic approaches, including in her ongoing funded research projects that innovatively link physician race/ethnicity and Medicaid claims. The findings are critical to support policy improvements in health workforce diversity. Dr. Vichare has a solid understanding of Medicaid policies for cancer care. Her publications address salient issues relevant to the oncology specialty workforce, including a national study of radiation oncology workforce. Dr. Vichare developed an NQFendorsed quality measure to address variation in radiation therapy for bone metastasis. Her transdisciplinary research and resulting collaborations have produced notable publications (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1t5tUQmM5aboAj/bibliography/public/). Dr. Vichare has a track record of successfully managing teams, budgets and creating realistic research plans and timelines. Her experience in cancer health policy, familiarity with oncology specialty workforce and research approaches grounded in contemporary health equity frameworks demonstrate her expertise and motivation necessary to lead the proposed project.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Addressing Inequities in Access to Care for Patients with Hematologic Malignancy: Understanding the Impact of Telehealth Policies in Medicaid

TAP Partner

Affimed is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company committed to giving patients back their innate ability to fight cancer by actualizing the untapped potential of the innate immune system. The company’s proprietary ROCK® platform enables a tumor-targeted approach to recognize and kill a range of hematologic and solid tumors, enabling a broad pipeline of wholly-owned and partnered single agent and combination therapy programs.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 2 study of AFM13, a bispecific cell engager targeting CD30 and CD16A, in combination with AB-101 (allogeneic natural killer cells) in patients with classical HL and CD30-positive PTCL

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Challen is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis). His laboratory research is at the interface of stem cell biology and blood cancer, and aims to determine how disruption of the epignenome changes the fate of HSCs and ultimately leads to the development of hematopoietic disorders. He was the first to describe how mutations in the gene DNMT3A regulates the balance of HSC self-renewal and differentiation as a first step to development of AML. His lab aims to develop mutation-specific therapies to inhibit CH clones as a mechanism of blood cancer prevention.

Dr. Challen is investigating how mutations in genes that alter the epigenome alter the function of blood-forming hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), leading to a condition known as clonal hematopoiesis (CH) and predispose for future development of blood diseases such as myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), acute myeloid leukemia (AML)and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL).

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Synergism of cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic factors in the clonal evolution of pre-malignant HSCs

Precision Medicine For DNMT3A-Mutant T-cell ALL

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

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

TAP Partner

Kura Oncology is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to realizing the promise of precision medicines for the treatment of cancer. The Company’s pipeline consists of small molecule drug candidates that target cancer signaling pathways.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

A phase 2 registration-directed clinical study of ziftomenib (KO-539), a menin inhibitor, in patients with NPM1-mutant relapsed or refractory AML

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

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

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Michael Wang, MD, is Professor of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson Cancer Center where he established the Mantle Cell Lymphoma Program of Excellence, the world’s only program dedicated exclusively to MCL research and treatment. He led trials resulting in 3 FDA approvals for MCL treatment. He leads a large lab focusing on overcoming resistance to MCL therapies and developing new ones. His detailed studies of tissue from patients with MCL has been instrumental in setting the stage for this application. Jia Zhou, PhD, is Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Apart from academia, he worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 7 years. His primary research interest is drug discovery and the development of novel small-molecule therapeutics for cancers and other diseases. He has established a fruitful collaboration with Dr. Wang and his lab and has great experience in leading both the chemical and pharmacological aspects of drug development.

Program Name(s)

Mantle Cell Lymphoma Research Initiative

Project Title

Development of novel BTK-MALT1 dual inhibitors to treat MCL

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