Who We Fund

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Tyler Parsons completed his PhD research at Oakland University and the Beaumont Research Institute in the lab of Dr. Gerard Madlambayan where he published on the role of blood stem cells in tumor response to radiation therapy. During the final year of his PhD, he was diagnosed with a myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) which directed his career focus and passion to furthering the understanding of MPNs and their transformation potential to leukemia. To this end, he joined the lab of Dr. Grant Challen at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis) where he is investigating clonal evolution in MPNs and the mutational trajectory leading to secondary leukemia. The aim of his post-doctoral fellowship is to describe the clonal architecture of MPN disease progression to leukemia which could lead to early detection and improved disease surveillance. He is passionate about improving outcomes for patients by advancing our understanding of both the biology and disease evolution of MPNs.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Mechanisms of Clonal Evolution in the Transformation of MPN to sAML

Washington University in St. Louis

I am currently an Instructor of Hematology at Washington University School of Medicine. I am interested in understanding the genomics of blood cancers and how this disease arises. This interest began as a post-bac researcher at the NIH in Dr. Elliott Margulies’ lab where we developed novel tools for genome assembly. I continued with MD/PhD training at WashU in the laboratory of Dr. Todd Druley, where we developed novel tools for rare variant detection. We leveraged these tools to advance our understanding of clonal hematopoiesis and therapy-related leukemia. This solidified my interest in blood cancers, driving me to pursue hematology/oncology fellowship training and join Dr. Grant Challen’s lab as a post-doc. Building upon my prior work, I am now focused on understanding how oncogenic fusions arise and cause disease. My long-term career goal is to run an independent research lab, leveraging a deeper understanding of leukemogenesis to create novel therapies and diagnostic tools.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Understanding How Hematopoietic Developmental State Determines Oncogenic KMT2A Fusion Formation and Leukemic Potential

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Dr. Trent Hall is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. John Crispino at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. Dr. Hall received his doctorate from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2020 studying hematopoietic stem cell development in Dr. Shannon McKinney-Freeman’s laboratory. Dr. Hall’s current research interests include predisposition to myeloid malignancies and hematopoietic development.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Identifying novel regulators of leukemic progression in GATA2-deficiency syndrome

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Dr. John Crispino is Chief of the Division of Experimental Hematology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He received his PhD from MIT for research on the mechanisms of RNA splicing performed in the laboratory of Dr. Phillip Sharp and then performed post-doctoral hematology research at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Stuart Orkin. Dr. Crispino and members of his laboratory have made many important contributions to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of normal and aberrant blood development. Currently, his research is focused on the role of GATA1 in blood cell development, mechanisms of leukemogenesis in children with Down syndrome and the characterization of genetic changes that drive malignant progression of MDS and MPN. He has authored over 170 manuscripts, with recent papers in Cancer Discovery, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Blood. Dr. Crispino is a recent Associate Editor of Blood, on the editorial boards of Leukemia and Blood Cancer Journal and past chair of an NIH study section.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Aberrant Megakaryopoiesis in the MPNs

Understanding Leukemia in Children with Down Syndrome to Develop Better Therapies

UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

I am a first-generation college graduate with a Master’s degree in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Biochemistry. My long-term career goal is to lead my own research group focused on understanding key immunological pathways by which the human body fights infection and to develop effective therapies that target blood cancers. During my research career thus far, I have gained a unique repertoire with expertise in chemical biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology with broad knowledge in immunology, cancer biology, and virology. Currently, I am training at the University of North Carolina's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center under the mentorship of Blossom Damania who is a leader in the fields of viral oncogenesis and viral immunology. As many people have had the misfortune of personal or family experience with blood cancers, myself included, I am devoted to advancing my training and progressing research in this field to help alleviate the burden of these diseases.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Elucidating the role of FAM72A in EBV-driven B cell lymphomagenesis

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

Dr. Daniel Pollyea has received degrees from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and Stanford University. He served as Chief Medical Resident at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He has been the Principal Investigator for multiple early-phase clinical trials and been involved in the clinical development and approval of four drugs for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, spoken to audiences around the world about this work, and is currently the Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines Committee on AML. His work involves developing ways to target leukemia stem cells in patients with AML and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Eradication can result in deep and durable remissions, or even cures. His team’s efforts have involved identifying vulnerabilities in the ways that leukemia stem cells process energy. These weaknesses can be specifically exploited with novel drug therapies, and Dr. Pollyea is focused on developing and running clinical trials that use these agents to target these weaknesses.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting Leukemia Stem Cells in the Clinical Setting: The Development of A Comprehensive Program

University of Manchester

Sam Butterworth joined the University of Manchester as a Senior Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry in November 2016. Prior to this he worked at the University of Birmingham from 2013 and at AstraZeneca from 2005-2013. During this time he has been accountable for chemistry strategy and delivery for all phases of drug discovery projects from target review and hit generation, through to lead optimisation and pre-clinical development. His work at AstraZeneca led to the development of a targeted anti-cancer agent osimertinib that was approved by the FDA in November 2015, and along with his colleagues Sam has been recognised for this work through the 2017 RSC Malcolm Campbell Award and the 2018 ACS Heroes of Chemistry award. Since returning to academia he has established national and international collaborations focussing on translation research, predominantly in Oncology, and has been awarded >£8M translational funding as PI.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Project Title

Development of peptide-drug conjugates for the treatment of Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (CMML)

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow with a strong background in malignant hematology research. My work focusses on identifying targetable metabolic vulnerabilities in aggressive leukemias in which effective treatment regimens are limited. I completed my PhD under the mentorship of Professor Ricky Johnstone at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, where I discovered that FLT3-ITD mutations, among the most common in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), promote the biosynthesis of the amino acid serine. Genetic or pharmacological ablation of serine biosynthesis was selectively lethal to FLT3-ITD-mutant AML cells and synergized with cytarabine, the standard of care chemotherapy agent. This work was published in Cancer Discovery in 2021. My postdoctoral work unifies and builds on my interests and expertise in AML model generation and characterization, large-scale genetic screening, transcription, epigenetics, cellular metabolism, and use of in vivo models for therapeutic validation.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Metabolic Regulation of Leukemic Cell Fate

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Ravi Bhatia, MD is Professor in the Department of Medicine, the John G. Kelton, M.D., Endowed Chair and Director of Research in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr Bhatia received his Hematology and Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant training from the University of Minnesota and joined the City of Hope National Medical Center in 1996, where he developed his career as a physician-scientist. His clinical interests are in hematologic malignancies and hematopoietic cell transplantation, with emphasis on myeloid leukemias. His research focuses on studying the regulation of normal and malignant hematopoietic stem cells, therapeutic targeting of malignant stem cells, and hematopoietic stem cell therapeutics. He is the author of over 170 publications and the recipient of NIH grant funding since 2006. He has been a Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Prediction and prevention of therapy-related myeloid neoplasms following autologous transplantation

Columbia University Medical Center

I am a pediatric oncologist and health outcomes researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. My research aims to identify how social determinants of health drive care and outcomes in children, adolescents, and young adults (AYA) with leukemia and lymphoma. At Columbia, I am the institutional Principal Investigator for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium and I serve on the Children’s Oncology Group Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) Steering Committee. In these roles I participate in the design and implementation of new clinical trials, and in the development of embedded health services studies. My recent work includes a series of large-scale analyses (using clinical trials and population data) evaluating outcomes by race/ethnicity and age in ALL and HL. Increasingly, I am working to identify barriers to clinical trial participation among diverse populations, and on leveraging the clinical trial infrastructure to collect prospective data on social determinants of health.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging cancer registries, clinical trials, and community partnerships to address disparities in pediatric, adolescent, and young adult lymphoma

The George Washington University

Dr. Vichare’s research investigates the impact of health policies on health equity. Her training as primary care physician and health services researcher, and professional experiences shape her research approaches. Her recent studies in collaboration with Dr. Luo and Ms. Erikson utilize Medicaid claims and generate foundational evidence on health workforce in Medicaid. She implements creative analytic approaches, including in her ongoing funded research projects that innovatively link physician race/ethnicity and Medicaid claims. The findings are critical to support policy improvements in health workforce diversity. Dr. Vichare has a solid understanding of Medicaid policies for cancer care. Her publications address salient issues relevant to the oncology specialty workforce, including a national study of radiation oncology workforce. Dr. Vichare developed an NQFendorsed quality measure to address variation in radiation therapy for bone metastasis. Her transdisciplinary research and resulting collaborations have produced notable publications (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1t5tUQmM5aboAj/bibliography/public/). Dr. Vichare has a track record of successfully managing teams, budgets and creating realistic research plans and timelines. Her experience in cancer health policy, familiarity with oncology specialty workforce and research approaches grounded in contemporary health equity frameworks demonstrate her expertise and motivation necessary to lead the proposed project.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Addressing Inequities in Access to Care for Patients with Hematologic Malignancy: Understanding the Impact of Telehealth Policies in Medicaid

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