Who We Fund

Columbia University Medical Center

Jennifer Amengual, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University in the Division of Hematology and Oncology. As a physician-scientist, her research goals are to directly translate observations and concepts developed in the laboratory to rational targeted therapies for patients with lymphoma. Dr. Amengual has led many investigator-initiated trials based on data generated in her laboratory through the NCI Cooperative Group Networks, SWOG and ETCTN. Columbia University is a tertiary care center that performs a high number of organ transplants and has an enrichment of PTLD patients. This has generated great interest in how to improve screening and treatment for these patients. Dr. Amengual has spearheaded a PTLD working group that encompasses transplant, infectious disease, lymphoma and cellular therapy specialists from both the adult and pediatric groups. This has led to the development of several studies providing the foundation for the proposed clinical trial.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Defining ctDNA monitoring and immune modulation in a novel, risk stratified clinical trial for PTLD

Boston Children's Hospital

Vijay G. Sankaran, MD, PhD is the Jan Ellen Paradise, MD Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an Attending Physician in the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute. Dr. Sankaran's lab seeks to understand the influence of human genetic variation on blood and immune cell production in health and disease. Their work has resulted in a number of therapies for blood diseases, including work that led to the development of Casgevy for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. Dr. Sankaran has received a number of awards for his work including the 2019 Seldin-Smith Award for Pioneering Research from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the 2022 E. Mead Johnson Award from the Society for Pediatric Research, and 2024 Trailblazer Prize from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Inherited resilience to clonal hematopoiesis and myeloid malignancy by modifying stem cell RNA regulation

Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Jing Fu is an Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Peking University and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on translational studies of multiple myeloma and AL amyloidosis, with an emphasis on developing novel immunotherapeutic strategies. She investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying disease progression, immune evasion, bone disease, and therapeutic resistance to identify new therapeutic targets and advance precision immunotherapy for patients with plasma cell disorders.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting GCK as a novel and selective therapeutic strategy against RAS mutated Multiple Myeloma

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Nitin Jain, MD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He earned his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He completed Internal Medicine residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin and fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the University of Chicago. Dr. Jain research interests include new drug development for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Dr. Jain is Principal Investigator of several investigator-initiated phase I-II clinical trials, including combination targeted therapies (ibrutinib and venetoclax) in CLL, checkpoint inhibitors in Richter transformation, novel CD22 antibody drug conjugate in B-ALL, venetoclax + chemotherapy in B- and T-ALL, and off-the-self allogeneic CAR-T in B-ALL. The trial combining ibrutinib and venetoclax was published in New England Journal of Medicine in 2019. He has won many awards including ASCO merit award, Sabin Family Foundation Award in 2018 and MD Anderson Faculty Scholar award in 2020.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Combination Targeted Therapy in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

LCK-targeted Therapy in T cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Reid Merryman, MD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, and a Senior Physician in the Division of Lymphoma at Dana-Farber Cancer institute (DFCI). He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and fellowship training in hematology and oncology at DFCI. He serves as the Director of Clinical Research for the Lymphoma Division and as the Director of the Follicular Lymphoma Center and the Marginal Zone Lymphoma Center at DFCI. His research interests include 1) development of novel immune-based treatments in Hodgkin lymphoma and indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and 2) identification of novel biomarkers (like circulating tumor DNA) to guide response-adapted treatment approaches. He is currently leading 3 investigator-initiated trials testing CD3/CD20 bispecific antibody-based therapeutic approaches for patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed/refractory indolent NHLs.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

Bispecific antibody-based frontline therapy for follicular lymphoma

Columbia University Medical Center

Viviana obtained her BS in Biological Sciences and her master degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology at Sapienza, University of Rome before moving to Paris, France, to join Dr Di Nunzio laboratory at Institut Pasteur, for her PhD studies. Viviana applied fluorescence microscopy techniques to track HIV-1 in the host nucleus and investigate about the viral interplay with factors in the nucleus of the infected cells during early steps of replication. Guided by her interest in epigenetics, Viviana joined the Viny Lab in 2023 for her postdoctoral training where she aims to identify gene regulation mechanisms linked to blood cell development and disease. Viviana’s goal is to contribute to innovative blood research for more effective personalized treatments and positively impact the academic environment. She also hopes to inspire younger generation to get involved in science and be able to mentor students in their career path in cancer research.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Impaired dynamic nucleosome remodeling as a leukemogenic mechanism and therapeutic target in AML

Weill Cornell Medicine

Ramon Massoni-Badosa, PhD is a graduate of Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona in 2023, and his PhD focused on applying single-cell genomics technologies to benchmark the effect of sample preservation in single-cell RNA-seq data (Massoni-Badosa R. Genome Biol 2020), create a single-cell-driven atlas of cell types in human tonsils (Massoni-Badosa R., Immunity in press), and track the clonal evolution of CLL to Richter's syndrome (Nadeu,* Royo,* Massoni-Badosa*, Playa-Albinyana*, Garcia-Torre* Nat Med 2022). As highlighted in these three publications, he has gained extensive experience in large-scale single-cell multi-omics projects, as well as in combining computational and biological knowledge to gain biological and clinical insights. During his postdoc in the ten Hacken and Landau labs, Ramon will leverage his expertise to improve the mechanistic understanding of Richter’s syndrome, with the ultimate goal of identifying new targets to treat this incurable disease.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Uncovering MGA-driven epigenetic reprogramming in Richter's syndrome