Who We Fund

TAP Partner

Constellation Pharmaceuticals was a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics that selectively modulate gene expression to address serious unmet medical needs in patients with cancer. MorphoSys acquired Constellation in 2021 and then Novartis acquired MorphoSys in 2024. Novartis continues to develop pelabresib in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

Development of BET protein bromodomain inhibitors for the treatment of patients with hematologic malignancies

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

My name is Ivan Odak and I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Brody lab. I am an accomplished researcher with 20 authored papers, 9 of which as first or last author. I obtained my PhD summa cum laude from Hannover Biomedical Research School in Germany, where I also worked as a postdoc in the lab of Reinhold Förster. Though challenging, I find science primarily enjoyable, and I like using my skills to tackle important questions in the field of immuno-therapy. The colleagues see me as tireless force in the workplace and I often use my positive attitude and energy to motivate others. My ultimate goal is to establish my own lab dedicated to research and discovery of cancer immunotherapies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Prevention of antigen escape by modulation of off-target tumor killing in T cells

Stanford University

Dr. Kathleen Sakamoto is Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. She has been studying the causes of AML and developing new therapies for the past 30 years. Her research funded by the LLS currently focuses on repurposing a drug used to treat tapeworms, niclosamide, for children with relapsed/refractory AML. Niclosamide is an FDA approved drug and is well tolerated in children. Dr. Sakamoto’s research has resulted in a Phase I clinical trial that will study toxicity, response in AML cells, and drug levels. She is also studying mechanisms of resistance of AML cells to niclosamide to look for drugs that will act synergistically for future clinical trials. Her goal is to take discoveries in the laboratory and translate them to the clinics to improve the overall survival and quality of life in children with AML.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Niclosamide for the treatment of relapsed pediatric acute myeloid leukemia

Niclosamide for the Treatment of Relapsed/Refractory Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Massachusetts General Hospital

Subha was born and raised in India where he completed his Masters in Biochemistry from the University of Calcutta, India. Thereafter, he joined the Ph.D. program at Institute of Life Sciences, to pursue a career in research. His past research work focused on the role of chromatin remodelling complexes in guiding differentiation  programs and lineage choices in hematopoiesis, and how these epigenetic switches can contribute to leukemic transformation. Presently, he is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Peter Miller's lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.  Menin inhibitors (MIs), have recently emerged as an exciting new modality for treating AML. However, MIs are not curative and associated with toxicities like differentiation syndrome. His overachieving goal here is to dissect mechanisms of MIs and come up with combination strategies/targets that can improve the efficacy of MIs in order to achieve profound and long lasting responses in AML patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging p53 to Improve Menin Inhibition in Leukemia Therapy

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network

Tak W. Mak is an international leader in cancer and immunology research. He is best known for his cloning of the human T cell receptor in 1984, which led to the CAR-T therapies now approved for leukemias/lymphomas. His lab also generated numerous genetically modified mouse strains to identify key factors in immune disorders and cancers. His group’s demonstration that CTLA4 negatively regulates T cell activation paved the way for checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy. Most recently, his team showed that T and B cells produce acetylcholine in a manner influencing tumorigenesis and autoimmunity. On the biotech front, Dr. Mak co-founded Agios Pharmaceuticals, which produced two IDH inhibitors that are now FDA-approved for treatment of AML. The Mak team has also developed two novel agents targeting aneuploid cancer cells. These agents have shown promise in phase 2 clinical trials. Dr. Mak has published >950 papers, holds 20 patents, and has received over 35 national and international awards.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

The Immune Niche in the Development of Hematological Malignancies and Implications for Novel Therapy

Stanford

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

University of Iceland

Professor Sigurður Yngvi Kristinsson is currently consolidating his position as one of the leading researchers world-wide in the field of multiple myeloma, its precursors, its epidemiology, progression, and treatment. This has been the main thrust of his scientific and clinical efforts from the time he defended his thesis on monoclonal gammopathies at the Karolinska Institutet in 2009. In 2012 he became the youngest full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Iceland and he is a consultant at Landspitali University Hospital. He designed and leads the largest myeloma screening study in the world, the iStopMM project in which over 80,000 individuals provided informed consent. His current research group includes 7 PhD-students, three postdocs, a lab with 4 biologists, 6 research nurses, three statisticians/data manager, and five support staff. He is an author of more than 110 scientific papers including the current guidelines for myeloma treatment and follow up and has an h-index of 57.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Early Detection and Intervention in Smoldering Multiple Myeloma: population-based screening and treatment; Edit-SMM

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Dr. Urvi Shah is an Assistant Attending in the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology and received a Master of Science degree in Clinical and Translational Cancer Research. Her research interests include modifiable risk factors (diet, metabolism, microbiome) in cancer. She completed the first pilot nutrition trial in plasma cell disorders to date (NUTRIVENTION) and has 3 other dietary trials enrolling. Dr. Shah has been supported by career development awards (National Cancer Institute [NCI] K12, International Myeloma Society and American Society of Hematology [ASH] Scholar) and research awards (ASH CRTI, ECOG ACRIN Young Investigator Translational Research, Henry Moses, Celgene Future Leaders in Hematology, NCI Early Investigator Advancement Program and Clinical Cancer Research Early Career). She has published papers in prominent journals and has been an invited speaker and chair.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

A Decentralized Randomized High-Fiber Dietary Trial to Improve Outcomes in Newly Diagnosed Myeloma

The Jackson Laboratory

Dr. Jayna Mistry was awarded her PhD degree at the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute in Norwich, United Kingdom following her thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. Stuart Rushworth and Professor Kristian Bowles. She discovered translationally relevant mechanisms by which stress can induce metabolic alterations in hematopoietic stem cells due to interactions with non-hematopoietic cells in the bone marrow microenvironment. She is continuing her training as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Jennifer Trowbridge at The Jackson Laboratory studying aging-associated mechanisms causing clonal hematopoiesis and blood cancers. Dr. Mistry currently holds a Scholar Award from The Jackson Laboratory. She is first author on four primary research articles and a review article, and co-author on ten additional primary research publications.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Senescence Induced by Dnmt3a-Mutant Hematopoiesis Drives Clonal Hematopoiesis and Transformation to Myeloid Malignancy

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 LLS 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

University of Cambridge

George Vassiliou is Professor of Hematological Medicine and Co-lead of the Hematological Malignancies Program at the University of Cambridge, and Consultant Hematologist at Cambridge University Hospitals.

He studies the pre-clinical evolution, molecular pathogenesis and treatment of myeloid cancers. Highlights of his work include the co-discovery of the shared precursor of myeloid cancers, clonal hematopoiesis (CH), the description of its lifelong natural history and the first demonstration that individuals at risk of these cancers can be identified years in advance, opening the prospect of their prevention. He also developed the first genomic diagnostic tools for myeloid cancers, discovered mechanisms of how they develop and identified hundreds of potential treatment targets using the first genome-wide CRISPR genetic screen in any human cancer. His work has led to development of new treatments, including METTL3 inhibitors that are now in clinical trials against acute myeloid leukemia.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Development of a clinical program for myeloid cancer prevention

Atrium Health Foundation

I am a physician scientist, specializing in lymphoma therapy. My area of research is focused on the development of new therapeutic approaches in lymphoma by engineering special nanoparticle-based drug-delivery platforms. My team has pioneered a novel high-precision drug delivery system using “click chemistry”, which is composed of high-affinity binding chemical couples. By using this novel technique, we have shown an 8-fold increase in tumor uptake of small molecule drugs compared to the conventional drug delivery, with no discernable toxicity in lymphoma models. My second major area of research involves cell signaling pathways, and their impact on lymphoma cell survival. If this novel targeted therapy platform proves successful, pretargeted nanoparticle approach can be utilized to enhance the potency and precision of small molecule drugs for treatment of relapsed mantle cell lymphoma and transformed follicular lymphoma, which are associated with chemoresistance and poor prognosis.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Next-Generation Targeted Therapy in Mantle Cell Lymphoma and Transformed Follicular Lymphoma