Who We Fund

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Dr Tasian is a pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist who is interested in development of molecularly-targeted therapeutics for children with high-risk leukemias. She specializes in the clinical care of children with leukemia and lymphoma, is an internationally-recognized expert in pediatric ALL and AML, and serves as the Chief of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at CHOP. Her bench-to-bedside and bedside-back-to-bench translational laboratory research program focuses upon testing of kinase inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapies in genetic subsets of childhood ALL and AML. Dr Tasian has leadership roles in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) ALL and Myeloid Diseases committees and LLS PedAL/EuPAL consortium, is the COG Developmental Therapeutics committee Vice-Chair of Biology for Hematologic Malignancies, and leads or co-leads several national or international early phase clinical trials testing precision medicine therapies in children with high-risk leukemias.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Precision Medicine Inhibitor and Immunotherapy Approaches for High-Risk Childhood Leukemias

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr. Walter’s research focuses on AML. He is particularly interested in improving antibody-based therapies by optimizing existing therapeutics and through the development of novel antigen-directed therapies. As examples of the latter, his lab has helped with candidate drug identification and characterization of 5 agents that have subsequently advanced to clinical testing. A major area of focus of his research lies in the delineation of the mechanisms of action and resistance that are relevant for antibody-based AML therapeutics and the rational development of combination therapies that can overcome drug resistance. Many of his studies conducted over the last 20 years have aimed at optimizing CD33- and, more recently, CD123-targeted therapies. In clinical studies, Dr. Walter conducts trials testing novel treatments and innovative care approaches for AML patients. Furthermore, he uses large datasets to develop and improve diagnostic and prognostic tools for people with AML.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

211Astatine-CD123 Radioimmunotherapy for Cancer (Stem) Cell-Directed Treatment of Acute Leukemia

The Brigham and Women’s Hospital

My scientific background involves the functional characterization of rare immune cells called dendritic cells in advanced melanoma patients. These cells are master regulators of immunity and are responsible for orchestrating anti-cancer responses driven by effector cells called T cells. My PhD focused on patients who received immunotherapy via antibodies that reinvigorate the immune system, also known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. I collected patient blood samples before and during treatment, and found that a critical subtype of dendritic cell is numerically and functionally impaired in patients who did not respond to immunotherapy compared to those who responded. In my current lab, I leveraged my experience in immune cell research and now study how a novel drug combination can be used to target and kill acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. This innovative approach targets two biologically important processes within a cell – the protein-making machinery and the control of cell death.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr. Meshinchi and Dr. Locatelli will serve as co-PIs.

Dr. Meshinchi, a pediatric oncologist and stem cell transplant physician at Fred Hutch, has 25 years of experience in AML biology and novel therapeutics. He led AML biology efforts for Children's Oncology Group (COG) for over two decades and identified several AML-specific targets, including mesothelin, now in clinical development.

Dr. Locatelli, Director of Pediatric Oncology at Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital (OPBG) in Italy, is one of the most renowned oncologists in the world. He is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the treatment of pediatric leukemias, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and immunotherapies including CAR-T cell therapy. As chair of the Italian Association for Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (AIEOP) AML working party, he has positioned OPBG at the forefront of early-phase CAR-T trials for pediatric cancers, offering hope to children with otherwise untreatable cancers.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Novel Immunotherapeutic Development in Childhood AML

Multi-modal Immunotherapeutic Targeting of AML-restricted Targets in Infants and Children

Novel immunotherapeutic strategies in infants with high risk AML

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr Dhodapkar is a physician-scientist with expertise in clinical/translational research in cancer immunology/dendritic cell (DC) biology and in immunobiology of myeloma (MM) and related diseases. Following training in immunology in the lab of Nobel Laureate (Late) Ralph Steinman, Dhodapkar lab has been focused on studies of immunobiology of myeloma and cancer immunology. His clinical practice has been focused on patients with myeloma for past 20+ years. He carried the earliest studies of adoptive human DC transfer and in vivo targeting of human DCs. His laboratory has made several seminal contributions to MM biology and cancer immunology. In terms of clinical research in MM, he has led several clinical studies, including the first clinical studies that led to the discovery of anti-myeloma effects of thalidomide (UArk98-003), first US national cooperative group studies in precursor gammopathies(S0120), AL amyloidosis(S9826) and co-led the first phase III studies (E3A06) showing successful prevention of clinical MM. He has served on several panels for clinical guidelines, including as lead for SITC clinical immunotherapy guidelines panel for myeloma. He has co-led the cancer immunology programs at Yale and Emory for the past decade. His work has been cited >34K times with h-index 87. Relevant to the current proposal, he/his group has played a major role in clinical development of T-cell engagers as well as IMiDs in MM, developed the first genetically-humanized model for myeloma and provided new insights into spatial immunology.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Pilot trial of microbial targeting to prevent myeloma

Columbia University Medical Center

I am a pediatric oncologist and health outcomes researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. My research aims to identify how social determinants of health drive care and outcomes in children, adolescents, and young adults (AYA) with leukemia and lymphoma. At Columbia, I am the institutional Principal Investigator for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium and I serve on the Children’s Oncology Group Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) Steering Committee. In these roles I participate in the design and implementation of new clinical trials, and in the development of embedded health services studies. My recent work includes a series of large-scale analyses (using clinical trials and population data) evaluating outcomes by race/ethnicity and age in ALL and HL. Increasingly, I am working to identify barriers to clinical trial participation among diverse populations, and on leveraging the clinical trial infrastructure to collect prospective data on social determinants of health.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging cancer registries, clinical trials, and community partnerships to address disparities in pediatric, adolescent, and young adult lymphoma

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Goyal obtained his medical school diploma from Smt. N.H.L. Municipal Medical College in Ahmedabad, India, in 2011 and moved to the US to complete a residency in Internal Medicine from Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska in 2016. He pursued a fellowship in hematology-oncology from Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota from 2016-2019. He developed a unique focus in histiocytic neoplasms, including Erdheim-Chester disease, Langerhans cell histiocytosis, and Rosai-Dorfman disease. He conducted multiple studies describing the epidemiology, treatments, and outcomes of patients with histiocytosis and led to the establishment of first of its kind multidisciplinary Histiocytosis Working Group. He has led national and international guidelines on the diagnosis and management of these rare disease entities. He was subsequently recruited to join the Hematology-Oncology division at University of Alabama at Birmingham as an Assistant Professor in 2019 where he launched the Histiocytic Disorder Survivor Study to assess long-term outcomes among individuals with histiocytic neoplasms.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

A Multi-Center, Multi-National Investigation of Survivorship and Patient-Reported Symptoms in Erdheim-Chester Disease

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Martin Dreyling is Professor of Medicine and head of the lymphoma programme at the Department of Medicine III, LMU Hospital Munich. He studied at the Universities of Düsseldorf, Giessen, Tübingen and Würzburg, and completed his clinical training at the Universities of Bonn, Münster, Göttingen and Munich. In addition, he was visiting scientist at the University of Chicago.

His scientific focus is on the molecular basis of malignant transformation, cell cycle dysregulation and secondary genetic alterations as well as biological prognostic factors in malignant lymphoma. He is also interested in innovative therapeutic approaches, including molecular targeted approaches like inhibitors of the B-cell receptor pathway and immunological approaches.

Prof. Dreyling is coordinator of the European MCL Network and president of the German Lymphoma Alliance as well as EHA executive board member. He has co-authored numerous scientific papers and abstracts in international peer-reviewed journals.

Program Name(s)

Mantle Cell Lymphoma Research Initiative

Project Title

MULTIlayer Predictive models for relapsed MCL after ibrutinib as first line therapY (MULTIPLY)

Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Dr. Bailee Kain is from Geneseo, IL and received her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Missouri in 2016. She completed her doctoral thesis work at Baylor College of Medicine in Dr. Katherine King's laboratory, where she studied how antigenically diverse pathogens reprogram hematopoietic stem cells to induce innate immune cross-protection. In November 2022, Bailee joined Dr. Lee Grimes lab at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) as a postdoctoral research fellow. In the Grimes lab, she has focused on determining the oncogenic potential of novel variants found in African Ancestry AML patients, including PHIP. Through nominating PHIP as a functional oncogene, she hopes to combat cancer health disparities by making AML screening, risk stratification, and therapeutic strategies more inclusive. Following her training, Bailee's goal to is to develop an independent research program focused on understanding the disease mechanism of ancestry specific variants found in AML.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Functionalizing novel PHIP variants in ancestry-specific acute myeloid leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Chen is a Clinical Investigator and Attending Physician in the Adult Leukemia Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He attended Stanford University School of Medicine and completed Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Medical Oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His research interest is in the development of novel therapies for advanced myeloid neoplasms such as acute leukemias and myelodysplastic syndromes, with particular focuses on cell therapies and epigenetic approaches. 

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Memory-like natural killer cells and venetoclax to eradicate measurable residual disease in AML

BC Cancer

Dr. Manabu Fujisawa received M.D. from Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan. Motivated by the experience as a hematologist having treated many patient with treatment-resistant disease, Dr. Fujisawa conducted a clinical study on clonality and clinical progression in multiple myeloma in Kameda Medical Center, Chiba. Dr. Fujisawa then began his basic research at University of Tsukuba in 2016, where he received PhD under the supervision of Pr. Mamiko Sakata-yanagimoto. Pr. Sakata’s lab focused on clonal hematopoiesis and malignant lymphoma, which Dr. Fujisawa studied the function of clonal hematopoietic-derived immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. In 2022, Dr. Fujisawa joined the laboratory of Pr. Christian Steidl in Lymphoid Cancer Research at the BC Cancer Research Centre in Vancouver, Canada, as a postdoctoral fellow.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Spatial architecture and malignant cell characterization of nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin lymphoma

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Monika Mittal is a dedicated researcher specializing in cancer biology, with a focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML). With a strong background in molecular biology and biochemistry, Dr. Mittal aims to uncover the underlying mechanisms of blood cancers and develop innovative therapeutic strategies. Currently, Dr. Mittal is investigating the role of DCAF15, a protein that regulates cellular processes, to understand its impact on AML progression and treatment. By employing advanced techniques such as gene editing and targeted protein degradation, Dr. Mittal aims to create new therapeutic strategies that can improve patient outcomes. Passionate about translating scientific discoveries into clinical applications, Dr. Mittal is committed to improving outcomes for those affected by blood cancers, driving research forward to find more effective treatments for AML. Through collaboration and innovation, Dr. Mittal hopes to make a meaningful difference in the fight against leukemia.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging the ubiquitin proteasome system for targeted therapy in Acute Myeloid Leukemia