Anita Kumar
Mantle Cell Lymphoma immunotherapy
Anita Kumar, MD
New York, NY
United States
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Anita Kumar, MD is an Associate Attending at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she specializes in mantle cell lymphoma. Dr. Kumar leads the Memorial Sloan Kettering mantle cell lymphoma research program. She serves as a principal investigator for a number of clinical trials studying novel therapies for the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma and novel clinical applications of minimal residual disease assessment. She completed her undergraduate studies in Biochemical Sciences at Harvard College and medical school at Northwestern University. She then completed her internship and residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and subsequently completed her hematology/oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Novel Immunotherapy Combinations in Relapsed, Refractory Mantle Cell Lymphoma
Sriram Sundaravel
AML stem cells
Sriram Sundaravel, PhD
Bronx, NY
United States
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Glycotyping as a novel approach to study leukemia stem cell heterogeneity and function
Yubin Zhou
peripheral T cell lymphoma
Yubin Zhou, PhD, MBBS
College Station, TX
United States
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
Nicolas Nassar
pediatric leukemia
Nicolas Nassar, PhD
Cincinnati, OH
United States
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
I am an Assistant Professor at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. My areas of research interest include drug development and signaling with focus on small GTPases. My research is both basic and translational.
My research efforts encompass several methodologies, including structural biology, biophysical and biochemical studies, cellular functional assays, and ultimately, identifying small molecule compounds that bind to and modulate GTPase signaling in in vivo pre-clinical models of cancer.
RAC GTPases are key regulators of cell growth. By reorganizing the actin cytoskeleton, RAC plays a key role in cancer cell metastasis. It is also involved in mechanisms of resistance to therapies. My lab's goal is to inhibit RAC in leukemia by understanding the molecular mechanisms driving its hyperactivity.
One of my lab’s groundbreaking discoveries is the identification of a small molecule inhibitor of VAV3, a RAC activator. Current research studies the efficacy of VAV3 inhibition in models of relapsed/recurrent leukemia.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Neha Mehta-Shah
T-cell lymphoma
Neha Mehta-Shah, MD
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Neha Mehta-Shah, MD, MSCI is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis where she specializes in peripheral and cutaneous T-cell lymphomas. She completed her undergraduate and medical school at Northwestern University and then completed residency at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center. She was the chief resident at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she subsequently completed fellowship and chief fellowship in medical hematology/oncology in 2016. After joining the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, she has developed a nationally recognized T-cell lymphoma program and completed a Master's of Science in Clinical Investigation. Having a passion for T-cell lymphoma research since medical school, she has been recognized with multiple awards from ASH, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, the T-cell Leukemia Lymphoma Society, the Alliance as well as a Paul Calabresi K12 Award. She leads multiple trials in T-cell lymphoma nationally including the first US Intergroup Study in untreated peripheral T-cell lymphomas, A0501902.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Vittoria Biotherapeutics
immunotherapy, CAR-T, TCL
Vittoria Biotherapeutics
Philadelphia, PA
United States
TAP Partner
Vittoria Biotherapeutics is developing novel CAR-T cell therapies that transcend the limitations of current cell therapies. Based on technology exclusively licensed from the University of Pennsylvania, Vittoria's proprietary Senza5 platform unlocks the antitumor potential of engineered T cells and utilizes a five-day manufacturing process to maximize stemness, durability, and target cell cytotoxicity. By acting on the fundamental biology of T cells, Senza5 can be used to improve the efficacy of engineered T cell therapies with pipeline applications in oncology and autoimmune diseases.
Program Name(s)
Therapy Acceleration Program
Project Title
Megan McNerney
AML/MDS
Megan McNerney, MD PhD
Chicago, IL
United States
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 LLS Fellow Award and the LLS, 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
Caribou Biosciences
immunotherapy, allo-CAR, NHL, MM
Caribou Biosciences
Berkeley, CA
United States
TAP Partner
Caribou is a clinical-stage biotechnology company, co-founded by CRISPR pioneer and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., using next-generation CRISPR genome-editing technology to develop “off-the-shelf” (allogeneic) CAR therapies for hard-to-treat blood cancers.
Program Name(s)
Therapy Acceleration Program
Project Title
Riccardo Dalla-Favera
lymphoma (DLBCL)
Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD
New York, NY
United States
Columbia University Medical Center
Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD, Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, is the founder and Director of the Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University. He has dedicated his 40-year long career to the study of the pathogenesis of B cell malignancies, including B Cell Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and contributed significantly to the understanding of the genetics and biology of these diseases, as quoted in major textbooks of medicine and oncology. These studies have direct impacts on the diagnostics and therapeutic targeting of B cell cancers. His work is widely recognized by numerous National and International prizes and awards, including the 2006 William Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology and the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research GHA Clowes Memorial Award. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Program Name(s)
Discovery
Project Title
Samantha Tauchmann, PhD
Portland, OR
United States
Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute
Samantha Tauchmann Ph.D. is a postdoc at the Oregon Health & Science University. She received a B.S. in Molecular Life Sciences from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and her M.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences from the Transnational University Limburg. She completed her PhD under the mentorship of Prof. Dr. Jürg Schwaller at the University Children`s Hospital Basel in Switzerland, where she investigated the role of the methyltransferase NSD1 and the key erythroid transcription factor, GATA1, in erythroleukemia. Dr. Tauchmann joined the Maxson laboratory in February 2023. Her postdoctoral studies are focused on uncovering how SETBP1 mutations contribute to leukemia by modulating the function of methyltransferases. With a strong commitment to understanding blood cell development and leukemia biology, Dr. Tauchmann aspires to identify new therapeutics for SETBP1-mutant leukemias. Her long-term goal is to run an academic laboratory focused on epigenetic dysregulation in blood cancers.
Project Title
Histone methyltransferases as key dependencies in SETBP1-mutant leukemias
Jonathan Licht
DNA biology, myeloma
Jonathan Licht, MD
Gainesville, FL
United States
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
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Targeting Enhancer Dysfunction in Hematological Malignancy
Adenylate Kinase 2-A Novel Therapeutic Target in Multiple Myeloma
F. Lennie Wong
Equity in Access
F. Lennie Wong, PhD
Duarte, CA
United States
Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope
Dr. Wong is an applied biostatistician with over 30 years of experience in cancer survivorship research and more recently in comparative- and cost-effectiveness studies. Since 2006, she has been part of the Long-Term Follow-Up Program at City of Hope which follows over 10,000 patients who received hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) there. She has analyzed and published results on the relationships between patient/disease characteristics and treatment exposures on outcomes (survival, complications, quality of life) in HCT survivors. She was the principal statistician in a study that examined racial difference in adherence to a 2-year daily oral maintenance therapy in children and adolescents treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and whether this variation could explain racial differences in outcomes. Dr. Wong’s expertise extends to health services research. She examined the outcomes and cost-effectiveness of lifelong echocardiographic screening, recommended by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Guidelines, for early detection of asymptomatic heart failure in at-risk childhood cancer survivors. The study results helped revise the current COG Guidelines. She has been conducting a cost-effectiveness study of the COG Guidelines recommendation for breast cancer screening in chest-irradiated female Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors. Two manuscripts are in preparation. The findings will provide important information to help refine the COG Guidelines.
Program Name(s)
Equity in Access