Who We Fund

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

I am an Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation) at Fred Hutch with clinical trial and computational expertise. I have a broad background with a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation combined with computational sciences training, including a PhD in evolutionary models of aging and a KL2 career development award focused on microbiome bioinformatics. I leverage my clinical and computational expertise to make cancer treatment safer by improving supportive care. I characterize microbiota disruptions in patients with cancer, investigate their clinical significance, and test microbiota restorative therapeutics to improve clinical outcomes. Recently, I led the largest clinical trial of FMT in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients to date. We used findings from this trial to design the proposed randomized placebo-controlled phase 2 trial of third-party FMT to prevent aGVHD after transplantation.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Fecal microbiota transplantation to prevent acute GVHD after allogeneic stem cell transplantation

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. Keisuke Ito is an Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he has also served as the Director of Scientific Resources at the Stem Cell Institute. After his postdoctoral training, first at Keio University, where he also completed his clinical training, and then at Harvard, he joined the Einstein faculty in 2012. Dr. Ito’s team has focused on advancing our understanding of the regulatory pathways controlling the equilibrium of stem cells. At the core of his work is the process of stem cell division, and the balance between self-renewal and differentiation, which directly impacts tissue homeostasis and the development of hematological malignancies. Dr. Ito is devoted to targeting mitophagy, a mitochondrial quality-control process, as a therapeutic strategy, and has cut a path along the leading edge of research into the role of Ten-eleven translocation in the pathogenesis of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting mitophagy of leukemia stem cells for therapy

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

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

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

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Lakshmi Nayak currently serves as Director of the Center for Central Nervous System (CNS) Lymphoma at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. She received her medical degree from Grant Medical College in Mumbai, India. She completed her residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital/ Cornell campus, and fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Her research includes development of novel therapies through preclinical and clinical studies for management of brain tumors including primary CNS lymphoma. She has developed several phase I and II trials using combination of molecular targeted agents and immunotherapies including checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T cells for treatment of CNS lymphomas. She leads the international neurologic assessment in neuro-oncology (NANO) effort in collaboration with key leaders in neuro-oncology which led to the development of a standardized outcome-assessment scale to objectively evaluate neurologic function in patients with brain tumors.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

PD1 blockade alone and in combination with BTK/ITK inhibition in patients with refractory and recurrent primary central nervous system lymphoma

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​

TAP Partner

Dren Bio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune and other serious diseases. Dren Bio’s pipeline encompasses two distinct programs, the first focusing on the engineering of antibodies with enhanced antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (“ADCC”) capabilities and the second revolving around its proprietary Targeted Myeloid Engager and Phagocytosis Platform.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 1/2 study of DR-01, an anti-CD94 monoclonal antibody, in patients with large granular lymphocytic leukemia or cytotoxic lymphomas

A phase 1 study of DR-0201, a bispecific myeloid engager, in patients with B-NHL

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Dr. Soheil Meshinchi is a physician scientist and a Full Member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, as well as Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. With over 25 years of experience in AML biology, he chairs the COG Myeloid Disease Biology Committee and the NCI designated Hematopoietic Integrated Science Center (HM-ITSC) to help translate laboratory discoveries into clinical practice. He leads the novel target and biomarker discovery for the LLS Children’s Initiative and the Pediatric Acute Leukemia (PedAL) efforts. As the director of NCI TARGET AML initiative and the Target Pediatric AML (TpAML), , he has led multi-omic studies of over 3000 children and young adults; Studies including Whole Genome Sequencing, Transcriptome sequencing, miRNA sequencing, Methylation profiling as well as the ongoing long read RNA sequencing to fully define splice isoforms in normal and malignant hematopoiesis.

Program Name(s)

Dare to Dream

Specialized Center of Research Program

Translational Research Program

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

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

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

A graduate of Boston University, Dr. Davis completed medical school at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, where he also served his internship, residency, and the ABIM academic subspecialty research fellowship clinical investigator pathway in Hematology/Oncology. He is Professor of Medicine, is board certified in Hematology, and serves as the director of the UAB CLL Program. His laboratory studies the cellular and molecular immunobiology of lymphocytes in healthy and malignant conditions. As a postdoctoral fellow, he co-discovered a multigene family termed Fc receptor-like (FCRL1-6) that encodes cell surface proteins with tyrosine-based signaling function that are restricted to lymphocytes and upregulated in malignancies. Novel panels of antibodies and mouse models have been generated to investigate FCRL translational biology. The current proposal extends nearly two-decades of studies to advance immunotherapeutic targeting of the FCRL1 member in CLL and B cell malignancies.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Immunotherapeutic Targeting of FCRL1 in CLL

Northwestern

Paola Aguilar Neuville is a 3rd year medical student at Indiana University School of Medicine. As a Latina woman from a region where treatable cancers claim millions of lives, she is committed to research as a way to both give back to the community that nurtured her and have a broader impact in the field of oncology. Her research year began in July 2024 in the lab of Dr. Jaehyuk Choi at Northwestern in Chicago.

Program Name(s)

Student Mentorship and Research Training (SMART)

Project Title

Cellular and genetic drivers of Cutaneous γδ T-cell lymphomas (PCGDTL)