Who We Fund

Boston Children's Hospital

In the last 17 years, I developed gene editing tools to improve cancer immunotherapy or promote safer applications of human hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy. I pioneered this field since when the first gene editing enzymes were shown to be potentially useful for therapeutic purposes. In 2012, I published a break-through work where we demonstrated for the first time the possibility to genetically inactivate the T cell receptor in primary T cells for improving safety/efficacy of cancer adoptive immunotherapies. This innovative approach is now widely used in immunotherapy field for generating allo-compatible T cells or to express CAR genes under the TCR promoter. In 2014, I developed the first protocol that allows targeted transgene integration in human HSC capable of long-term multilineage repopulation. My current efforts are aimed to move these advanced genetic engineering strategies towards an effective therapeutic treatment for inherited and acquired hematologic diseases.

 

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Towards clinical testing of epitope editing to enable novel adoptive immunotherapies

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Nze is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Nze's clinical interests are in malignant hematology and oncology with a focus on Lymphoma. He is broadly interested in healthcare delivery system design, value-based healthcare research, and the health policy contexts that shape care delivery. He has been a longtime advocate for equity in health care delivery and the elements that lead to differential access and outcomes in care for vulnerable populations. He aims to combine excellence in delivering clinical oncologic care to cancer patients and investigate how we can optimally structure our healthcare system to ensure equitable cancer care for all.  

Program Name(s)

IMPACT

Project Title

Research Infrastructure to Promote Enrollment of Underserved Patients on Clinical Trials

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Lindsley is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Immunology from Washington University School of Medicine, then completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a member of the MDS Genetics Subcommittee for the NIH National MDS Study, NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine Steering Committee, and the International Working Group for Prognosis in MDS (IWG-PM) molecular committee. The primary focus of his laboratory is the biology and treatment of myeloid malignancies. His genetic studies have led to new genomic models of leukemia classification and MDS outcome after stem cell transplantation. His laboratory uses mouse and cell line models to dissect the mechanistic basis of genetic cooperation during myeloid disease progression, with a specific focus on leukemia initiation in patients with predisposition syndromes and mutations that cause epigenetic alterations.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Genetic pathways of myeloid transformation and treatment response

Children's Research Institute

Michael Keller, M.D., is a pediatric immunologist at Children's National Hospital and specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of primary and secondary immunodeficiency disorders. He has authored many peer-reviewed articles and contributed to expert consensus guidelines on the treatment and diagnosis of primary immunodeficiency disorders. Dr. Keller is a member of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI); the Clinical Immunology Society; the European Society of Immunodeficiency; and the Primary Immunodeficiency Treatment Consortium (PIDTC).  Dr. Keller's research focuses on the use of adoptive T-cell therapies for treatment of infections in immunocompromised patients, including the use of this therapy to improve outcomes in children with primary immunodeficiency disorders as well as those undergoing bone marrow transplantation for cancer. 

He is the primary investigator of several Phase I-II studies of virus-specific T-cell immunotherapy. Dr. Keller lives in Maryland with his wife and two sons; and enjoys travel, hiking, and martial arts.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

T-cell immunotherapy for prevention of COVID-19 following bone marrow transplantation

Fox Chase Cancer Center

Dr. Nakhoda is a clinician-scientist in the department of hematology/oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center. She serves as steering committee member for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society supported Philadelphia Lymphoma rounds and is a panelist on the NCCN Guidelines for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. She has a research focus on improving tolerability of lymphoma and leukemia directed therapies in elderly patients and those with medical comorbidities, actively running an investigator-initiated study evaluating methods to improve methotrexate toxicity in this population. She is well suited to serve as primary investigator for this proposed project having served as local site PI for several multi-institutional investigational studies in lymphoma and with now 6 years of malignant hematology experience serving the Philadelphia area, first as hematology/oncology fellow at Temple University Hospital System and FCCC and now as an assistant professor at Fox Chase.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

RECONNECT: Overcoming Racial and Ethnic Inequity in Clinical Trial Enrollment via Clinical Trial Nurse Navigation and Provider Communication Training​

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

I am an MD/PhD physician scientist in the oncology fellowship at MSKCC where I treat leukemia and perform research to understand molecular underpinnings of the disease. My prior work at Brandeis University, Cold Spring Harbor Lab, Harvard Medical School, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine was focused on basic mechanisms of gene expression regulation and I am now studying RNA dysregulation in leukemia. During my PhD, I developed novel methods to study RNA binding proteins in collaboration with Nobel Laureate Dr. Michael Rosbash and Rosenstiel Prize winner Dr. Robert H Singer (my PhD mentor). This integrative approach to studying RNA is ideal for understanding understudied proteins that regulate splicing factor mutations in the Abdel-Wahab lab. For my career, I aim to use novel approaches to understand how the most prevalent splicing factor mutations in blood cancers drive progression and transformation.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting SF3B1 splicing factor mutant myeloid malignancies through dependency on GPATCH8

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

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

Dr. Daniel Pollyea has received degrees from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Stanford University. He served as Chief Medical Resident at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He has been the Principal Investigator for multiple early-phase clinical trials and been involved in the clinical development and approval of four drugs for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, spoken to audiences around the world about this work, and is currently the Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines Committee on AML. His work involves developing ways to target leukemia stem cells in patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Eradication can result in deep and durable remissions, or even cures. His team’s efforts have involved identifying vulnerabilities in the ways that leukemia stem cells process energy. These weaknesses can be specifically exploited with novel drug therapies, and Dr. Pollyea is focused on developing and running clinical trials that use these agents to target these weaknesses.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Targeting Leukemia Stem Cells in the Clinical Setting: The Development of A Comprehensive Program

Emory University

Dr. Porter is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and holds the Paul Amos Chair for Pediatric Oncology Research. He is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist and directs a lab in which they study molecular and cellular mechanisms of leukemogenesis, with the goal of developing novel therapeutic strategies. Most recently, they have been studying how leukemia cells influence the microenvironment to promote immune evasion. For example, they found that IL-12 overcomes calcineurin-dependent immune evasion by leukemia cells. Collaboratively, they designed BiTEokines to deliver IL-12 to the immune synapse of T cells and leukemia cells, supported by a DOD award (CA180783). They have also found that B cell malignancies express high levels of Siglec15, a newly identified immune checkpoint, and that inhibition of Siglec15 promotes immune clearance of malignant B cells in vivo. Thus, they are uniquely positioned to further develop Siglec15 as a therapeutic target for leukemia and lymphoma.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting Siglec15 to promote immune response to malignant B cells

The University of Chicago

Dr. Megan McNerney, MD/PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Pediatrics at The University of Chicago. She is a cancer genomicist and physician-scientist investigating how genetic changes alter normal hematopoiesis and drive malignancy. She also serves as an Attending in the Genomic and Molecular Pathology clinical laboratory. Dr. McNerney leads a team of 14 scientists interrogating the pathogenesis of loss of chromosome 7 and CUX1 in high-risk myeloid malignancies. She has published 34 manuscripts, many in top-tier journals. Mentoring and education are among her most meaningful roles, and the majority of her trainees have remained in biomedical research after leaving the lab. She is also dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of her scholarship. Dr. McNerney has received numerous honors, including the Blood Cancer United Fellow Award and the Blood Cancer United, Illinois Chapter Researcher of the Year.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Genomic interrogation of high-risk myeloid neoplasms to identify new therapies

University of Florida

Jonathan D. Licht, MD, is the Director of the University of Florida Health Cancer Institute, leading it to become the 72nd NCI-designated center in the country. Dr. Licht’s laboratory studies the role of abnormal function of histone methyltransferases and demethylases in malignancies such as multiple myeloma and acute lymphoblastic leukemia and recently described a new class of mutations in histones in cancer. NCI funded for nearly 35 years, Dr. Licht is also Principal Investigator of a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) Specialized Center of Research, now in its 17th year of funding. He is the founding Editor- in-Chief of Blood Neoplasia, a new journal of the American Society of Hematology, and serves on the editorial boards of Cancer Research, Oncogene and Clinical Cancer Research. Dr. Licht was the first chair of the AACR Taskforce on Hematological Malignancies of and currently is Chair of the Medical/Scientific Board of the LLS. Dr. Licht has published more than 230 articles, reviews and book chapters and has mentored over 40 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and 20 faculty members.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Epigenetic Mechanisms and Targeting in Hematological Malignancy

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Romee is a translational physician-scientist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. His long-term research goals are to translate novel aspects of immunology to improve treatments for patients with advanced cancer. He did his medical training at University of Minnesota and Washington University and was a faculty at Washington University before joining Dana Farber. He is the PI of Romee Lab for NK Cell Gene Manipulation and Therapy (https://romeelab.dana-farber.org) and the focus of his lab is gene editing of the immune cells particularly NK cells to enhance their cancer cell targeting and killing. His work helped describe memory-like NK cells which have enhanced activity against cancer cells and persist for months after their infusion into leukemia patients. He is leading efforts at Dana Farber to develop novel protocols using memory-like NK cells with other immunomodulating agents like checkpoint inhibitors in patients with advanced and otherwise incurable leukemia and solid tumors like Head and Neck Cancer, Ovarian Cancer and Kidney Cancer.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Cytokine induced memory-like NK cell immunotherapy to target post transplant relapse