Who We Fund

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Gianpietro Dotti, MD, is a Professor for the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program at Lineberger Cancer Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Dotti’s specializes in hematology and immunology. Since 2000, he has used his background in science and medicine to explore the use gene-modified T cells to treat hematologic malignancies, including lymphoma and leukemia, and solid tumors. His focus is primarily chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy that redirect the antigen specificity of T cells and strategies to overcome tumor inhibitory mechanisms.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting cathepsin G in acute myeloid 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

Project Title

Cotargeting oncogenic protein translation and apoptosis in acute myeloid leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Christian Marinaccio is a research fellow in Dr. Scott Armstrong laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. After graduating with a master of science in medical Biotechnology from University of Bari, Italy, he joined the laboratory of John D Crispino at Northwestern University to pursue a PhD in Life Sciences focused on blood malignancies. Under the supervision of Dr. Crispino, his research focused on mechanisms of progression from myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Currently, his research interests lay in the study of mechanisms of fusion protein turnover in KMT2A rearranged leukemias and in the study of leukemic transformation processes at the hematopoietic stem cell level, including cell of origin and clonal dynamics.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Identification and characterization of genetic factors affecting MLL/KMT2A fusion proteins stability in MLL/KMT2A rearranged leukemias

University of Calgary

Dr Bahlis is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Calgary in the division of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation and the Charbonneau Cancer Research Institute. Dr Bahlis received his medical degree in 1995 from St Joseph University in Beirut. He then completed his internal Medicine residency at the State University of New York followed by a Hematology-Oncology fellowship and a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer biology at the University of Miami. Dr Bahlis’ clinical and laboratory research focus on the study of plasma cell dyscrasia, with particular interest in multiple myeloma genomics and the development of novel therapeutics. He has received several awards and research funding from numerous agencies including the ASCO young investigator award, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada, Alberta Cancer Foundation, the Terry Fox Foundations and the Canadian Institute of Health and Research (CIHR).

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Development of a novel BCL2L1 armored CAR T-cell and a tumor-immune interactome in multiple myeloma

University of Virginia

I am a trained clinical hematopathologist and physician-scientist who is well versed in both basic and translational studies in hematologic tumors, with a special interest and emphasis in B-cell malignancies: the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of tumor microenvironment (TME)-induced survival and drug resistance. My long-term goal is to characterize the pathobiology of B-cell lymphomas, especially aggressive B-cell malignancies, and the evolution of resistance to drugs and, more recently, immunotherapy.

Over the last decade, I have developed an active and unique research program for drug screening, chemical proteomics profiling, bulk and scRNAseq, ChIP-seq, ATAC, scATAC, functional pharmacogenomic computational biology, and multiplex immune profiling, and applied it to cell line and primary lymphoma samples to determine the major intrinsic and TME extrinsic molecular determinants governing lymphoma cell response and resistance. By capitalizing a “” opportunity and approach, my long-term goal is to provide major advances in our understanding of the lymphoma biology, develop innovative therapies and exert an immediate favorable impact on treatment for lymphoma patients.

My extensive background in cancer biology and clinical hematology/oncology, with my expertise in novel lymphoma therapies and therapy resistance, make me well-suited to serve as a Principal Investigator on many projects.

Program Name(s)

Mantle Cell Lymphoma Research Initiative

Project Title

Understanding Resistance Mechanism to Enhance CAR-T Immunotherapy for MCL

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Peter Klein is a Professor of Medicine and Attending Physician in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his MD and PhD at Johns Hopkins, completed residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital, postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, and then joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and was appointed as an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medicine Institute. Dr. Klein’s research focuses on developmental biology and the signals that control hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which are responsible for the production of all blood cells. His group discovered a method to culture and expand normal HSCs in the laboratory to improve HSC transplantation. His group also explores how disruption of HSC signaling leads to hematopoietic malignancies such as myelodysplasia and leukemia and is exploring novel approaches to target these pathways for the treatment of blood cancers.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting splicing factor mutant myelodysplastic syndromes through GSK-3

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Alex Kentsis is a pediatric oncologist and cancer biologist. He directs the Tow Center for Developmental Oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where his research takes advantage of modern technologies to improve our understanding of the biologic causes of leukemias. Together with colleagues, he has made discoveries about new therapeutic targets in cancer cells, mechanisms by which cancer cells can evade new treatments, and improved strategies to overcome treatment resistance. Recently, his lab has identified new mechanisms of aberrant gene control and resistance to apoptosis in acute myeloid leukemias, and mechanisms of site-specific oncogenic mutations and DNA repair dependencies in human cancers. Combined with the development of new functional proteomic methods and therapeutics, this work is now poised to define precise molecular mechanisms that would lead to rational therapeutic strategies for patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting kinase-dependent dysregulation of transcription factor control in acute myeloid leukemia

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Fehniger is a physician-scientist that leads a research program focused on translational NK cell biology and therapy. His group pioneered studies characterizing memory-like (ML) NK cell biology and activity against AML and has led clinical trials advancing ML NK cell adoptive therapy for both adult and pediatric patients. Dr. Fehniger is director of the Biologic Therapies Core Facility and Laboratory Director of the Center for Gene and Cellular Immunotherapy. His team developed the platform and protocols for production of GMP grade ML NK cells for use in academic clinical trials. His lab performs correlative immunology to understand ML NK cell biology and identify mechanisms of resistance to NK cells in patients. Dr. Fehniger has extensive experience in human NK cell biology, flow and mass cytometry, single cell analysis, and immunotherapy. For the proposed clinical trial, Dr. Fehniger will work with clinical co-investigators in pediatric and adult stem cell transplant programs.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

NK cell immunotherapy to reduce relapse after haploidentical transplant for high-risk pediatric AML

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

I am a hematologist/oncologist, Director of the MSK Center for Hematologic Malignancies at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and a Member of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at MSK. My clinical expertise is in myeloid malignancies, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and rare blood cancers including hairy cell leukemia, chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, and histiocytoses. My research is focused on understanding the genetic alterations in patients with these cancers. One of our main areas of interest is understanding the role of mutations in RNA splicing factors and developing means to target cells with these mutations therapeutically.  

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

Project Title

Developing novel therapeutic approaches for classical and variant hairy cell leukemia

Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Jonas Jutzi is a postdoctoral fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston under the mentorship of the Scholar of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Dr. Ann Mullally. Dr. Jutzi received his MD and PhD, from the University of Freiburg, Germany. His achievements include publications in JEM and Blood describing mutations in NFE2 and unravelling their role in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). Dr. Jutzi’s translational focus also provided preclinical evidence of the efficacy of the drug bomedemstat in MPN, which is currently under clinical investigation. Dr. Jutzi has been awarded several research awards, including the prize for the best medial dissertation by the German Society of Hematology and Oncology. He also participated in the prestigious Translational Research Training in Hematology that fosters scientists through a yearlong mentoring program. His goal is to build an independent laboratory with the support of this Special Fellowship by the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Unfolding selective pathway dependencies of CALR mutated myeloproliferative neoplasms

Duke University Medical Center

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

Dr. Levy is the Robert K. Summy and Helen K. Summy Professor of Medicine and director of the Lymphoma Program at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also the associate director of translational science for the Stanford Cancer Institute. For more than 25 years his research has focused on monoclonal antibodies and the study of malignant lymphoma, currently using the tools of immunology and molecular biology to develop a better understanding of the initiation and progression of the malignant process. He was the first to successfully treat cancer with a monoclonal antibody, and went on to help develop rituximab (Rituxan®) for the treatment of patients diagnosed with lymphomas. He is using lymphocyte receptors as targets for new therapies for lymphoma, and he is currently conducting clinical trials of in situ therapeutic vaccination. Dr. Levy is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Special Grants

Project Title

In vivo generation of Chimeric Antigen Receptor cells to treat hemopoietic malignancies