Michael Savona
MDS and leukemia
Michael Savona, MD
Nashville, TN
United States
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Dr. Savona is the Head of Hematology, Cellular Therapy and Stem Cell Transplant, the Beverly and George Rawlings Director of Hematologic Malignancies Research, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University.
He is a physician scientist specializing in the development of experimental therapies for myeloid malignancies. He has led development and approval of several novel treatments targeting the proteosome, BCL2 family proteins, PI3 kinase delta, the JAK/STAT pathway, and various epigenetic agents. He studies clonal hematopoiesis (CH) and experimental opportunities to alter the progression of CH to myeloid neoplasia and/or vascular disease. He has been involved medical research for over 20 years and has published over 100 manuscripts in major academic journals including: Cancer Discovery, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Medicine, Blood, Cell Stem Cell, Lancet Oncology, Lancet Haematology, JAMA, and Nature Reviews.
He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom for the USAF.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
IMPACT
Project Title
Manipulation of cell fate in myeloid disease
Reaching out to underserved & minority patients with hematological diseases in the southeastern US
Taishi Yonezawa
AML
Taishi Yonezawa, PhD
Houston, TX
United States
Baylor College of Medicine
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Margaret (“Peggy”) Goodell’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine. Before joining her lab in April of 2021, I received my Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo, Japan. My Ph.D. thesis work has established a therapeutic approach to hematopoietic tumors targeting RUNX1 in the lab of Dr. Toshio Kitamura and Dr. Susumu Goyama. The work spanned bioengineering and computational biology and has the potential to save patients if the approach is introduced to the clinic. During my PhD., I earned the Dean’s Award (2021) and the American Society of Hematology the Abstract Achievement Award (2019). On a personal note, the primary motivation behind my pursuit of a career in blood cancer research is that I was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in high school. I was fortunate to be cured by a bone marrow transplant. Furthermore, having been a cancer patient myself, I currently participate in providing mental health support for cancer patients.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Uncovering mechanisms of DNMT3A stability in hematologic malignancies
Meng Li
Equity in Access
Meng Li, PhD
Houston, TX
United States
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Meng Li is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Health Services Research at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and a nonresident fellow at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California. Dr. Li completed her PhD in Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy at University of Washington, where co-PI, Dr. Flowers also completed his MS. Dr. Li’s research uses various data sources including population-based cancer registries, nationwide administrative claims databases, national survey data, and data from clinical trials and observational series to examine disease burden, factors that influence health care utilization, the effect of health care utilization on health outcomes, and the cost-sharing burden of prescription drugs. In particular, Her research has used Optum and SEER-Medicare data to examine disparity in initiation of immunotherapies among lung cancer and melanoma patients, the association between spending on several types of treatment and outcomes in breast cancer, and catastrophic spending among cancer patients on oral targeted anticancer medicines. Dr. Li has also developed methods to quantify novel elements of value for medical technologies in economic evaluations, which has important implications on the practice of value assessment. She meets regularly and collaborates with Drs. Shih and Flowers. Dr. Li’s research work has been published in top clinical, health economics, and health policy journals.
Program Name(s)
Equity in Access
Project Title
Ashwin Unnikrishnan, PhD
The University of New South Wales (UNSW)
Dr. Ashwin Unnikrishnan is a cancer researcher and Principal Investigator of the Molecular Mechanisms in Leukemia Laboratory based at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
The Unnikrishnan lab investigates the molecular alterations underlying hematopoietic cancers, primarily Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The group utilizes a range of cutting-edge technologies and a multi-disciplinary approach, merging lab-based experimentation with computational data analysis techniques, to make fundamental discoveries. An overarching goal of the lab is to lay the foundation for more effective treatments through an improved understanding of the molecular changes that underlie leukemia.
Dr. Unnikrishnan received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, WA, and his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Beyond azacitidine: investigating new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of MDS
Carma Bylund
Equity in Access
Carma Bylund, PhD
Jacksonville, FL
United States
University of Florida
Project Title
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
Project Title
Hong Wen
AML
Hong Wen, PhD
Grand Rapids, MI
United States
Van Andel Research Institute
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Epigenetics at Van Andel Institute. My research is focused on epigenetic regulation of gene expression during blood cell formation and in the pathogenesis of blood cancer. I obtained PhD in Biochemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001 and joined Dr. Joseph Lipsick’s laboratory at Stanford University for my postdoctoral training, where I became interested in blood cancer research. In 2008, I joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a research track Assistant Professor, where I made seminal discoveries of the ENL protein as a novel histone acetylation reader and an attractive new therapeutic target for acute leukemias. In 2018, I started my independent lab at Van Andel Institute studying epigenetic regulation of gene expression in blood cancers. The overarching goal of my research is to understand and target ENL in acute leukemias. My long-term research goal is to translate our discoveries at bench to help leukemia patients in the clinic.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Investigating and targeting the histone acetylation reader protein ENL in acute leukemias