Who We Fund

Universidad de Navarra

Dr Bruno Paiva, PharmD, PhD, is a research fellow of the Departments of Haematology and Immunology at the Clinica Universidad de Navarra and CIMA, Pamplona, Spain. He is also the Director of the Flow Cytometry Core of the University of Navarra.   Dr Paiva’s main area of expertise is the multidimensional flow cytometry analysis of haematological malignancies. His research focuses on immunogenomics to improve differential diagnosis, risk stratification, and monitoring of patients with monoclonal gammopathies and myeloid malignancies. He is an author or co-author of hundreds of publications in peer-reviewed journals, and has been recognized with numerous awards.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Systematic multiomic profiling of tumor and immune cells for non invasive detection of early myeloma

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Michael Green is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Lymphoma & Myeloma at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Green has led ground-breaking studies analyzing primary samples from patients receiving CAR T cell therapy to identify cellular features associated with outcome and both acute and chronic toxicities. Dr. Green has led the development of a large patient derived xenograft (PDX) repository at MD Anderson that includes models from post-CAR T relapse tumors that serve as important model systems for this study.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Investigating the role of CREBBP mutations and epigenetic crosstalk in B-cell lymphoma

Multiplexed epigenome engineering of solutions to major CAR T-cell barriers

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dai Chihara, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. Dr. Chihara received his MD degree from Kobe University in Japan, and completed clinical training in hematology and oncology both in Japan and the US. Dr. Chihara focuses on clinical research of lymphoma for aggressive and indolent B-cell lymphomas, and has led multiple research projects utilizing clinical data and population-based cancer registry data to identify high risk populations with poor outcomes. Dr. Chihara is currently working on discovering novel trial design and biomarkers in lymphoma through investigator initiated clinical trials at MD Anderson Cancer Center to address unmet needs for patients. Dr. Chihara has received many awards including ones from Lymphoma Research Foundation, American Society of Hematology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Biomarker and Risk Tailored Treatment to Improve Outcomes in Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma

Stanford University

Dr. Mark Hamilton is a native of Austin Texas. His undergraduate education was at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, where he graduated summa cum laude with majors in biology and English literature and minors in chemistry and anthropology. Mark learned a love for science and medicine in college leading to the pursuit of a combined MD/PhD at Baylor College of Medicine. For his PhD work, Mark worked in The Cancer Genome Atlas project using genomic sequencing technologies to understand how microRNAs function in cancer. Mark subsequently joined Stanford’s Translational Investigator Program which combines residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Hematology and Oncology. Mark’s career focus is on treating leukemia and lymphoma using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. He is especially interested in using genomic sequencing technologies to understand how CAR T-cells propagate in patients and interact with the tumor to kill cancer.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Cell-free DNA analysis of persistent CAR T-cell populations in humans

Montefiore Medical Center

Coming Soon.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

Project Title

Metabolically Optimized, Non-cytotoxic Low Dose Weekly Decitabine/Venetoclax in MDS and AML

Yale University

Markus Müschen, MD-PhD, is a physician-scientist at Yale University, where he serves as the Director of the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology and Chief of the Division of Basic Science of Yale Cancer Center. His research focuses on signal transduction and metabolic pathways in lymphoid malignancies and how they can be intercepted for the treatment of drug-resistant leukemia and lymphoma. Markus Müschen studied Medicine in Cologne, Germany and the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. After his clinical training in hematology-oncology with Volker Diehl, he completed postdoctoral fellowships with Klaus Rajewsky and Janet Rowley. Before coming to Yale, Markus Müschen’s laboratory was at UCSF for seven years where he led the Hematological Malignancies Program at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is currently an HHMI Faculty Scholar, supported by an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award (R35) and serves as mentor for graduate students, clinical and postdoctoral fellows.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Rational repurposing effort to disrupt beta-catenin protein degradation in B-cell malignancies

Mechanisms of tumor-initiation in B-lymphoid malignancies

Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Teresa Palomero is a molecular and cellular biologist. She is a Professor at Columbia University in the Institute for Cancer Genetics. Her laboratory focuses on the identification of molecular alterations responsible for the development of Peripheral T-cell lymphomas, a heterogeneous group of very aggressive lymphoid malignances. Dr. Palomero has been a pioneer in the genomic analysis of Peripheral T-cell lymphoma cases and in the development of mouse models for better understanding the evolution of the disease and test novel therapeutic agents. Her extensive work on hematologic malignancies has led to the identification of key genomic alterations in leukemia and lymphoma including some currently used for molecular diagnosis.

Dr. Palomero scientific work has been published in top tier scientific journals including Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine and Cancer Cell, among others.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting Microenvironment Determinants in Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma

Baylor College of Medicine

My professional goal is to improve outcomes for children with cancer and blood disorders. I am Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Co-Director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Lymphoma and Histiocytosis Programs. My research group focuses on research efforts to develop and test improved therapeutic strategies for children with histiocytic disorders, lymphoproliferative disorders and lymphomas. Our research in Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) has contributed to redefinition of the disease as a myeloproliferative neoplasia.

I am also co-founder of the North American Consortium for Histiocytosis Research (NACHO) that now includes over 60 institutions. With support from the LLS Translational Research Program, we are moving discoveries beyond the bench to clinical trials. NACHO-COBI is the first prospective trial testing MAPK pathway inhibition in children with LCH and related disorders that is now open in the NACHO network. We hope that results from this trial and correlative biology studies will improve survival and quality of life for patients with LCH

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Testing targeted therapy in LCH

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr Verma has been involved in study of blood cancers such as MDS and AML in the lab and in the clinic. His work has defined the critical role of various signaling pathways (p38 MAP kinase, TGF-beta, smad2/3, IRAK and others) activation in MDS and CMML and this work has directly led to the therapeutic targeting as these pathways in clinical trials in MDS/AML (Nat Cell Bio 2019, JCI 2018, Blood 2015, 2011, JCO 2020, NEJM 2020). The FDA approval of Luspatercept in MDS was also supported by his work in the lab. Dr Verma was on the team to first define stem cell alterations in MDS/AML (Nat Med, 2018; JCI 2014, Blood 2012). Dr Verma has conducted clinical studies in blood cancers (Nat Med, 2022, Cancer Cell 2021, Can Disc, 2020; JAMA Onc 2018) that have studied the effects of COVID-19 and environmental exposures (WTC 911 disaster) on outcomes and pathogenesis. He has also been actively engaged in early phase clinical trials that are investigating novel agents for MDS and AML.

Program Name(s)

CMML Initiative

Special Grants

Project Title

Studies on clonal hematopoiesis in the 911 WTC first responders

Baylor College of Medicine

I am honored and grateful to receive the Scholar Award from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This award will allow us to further investigate how metabolic pathways are used to enable epigenetic reprogramming in leukemia stem cells. These two mechanisms are dysregulated in a wide range of cancers including leukemia, and our recent studies have revealed that targeting metabolism and epigenetic regulators act synergistically to suppress leukemia. Our future studies may lead to novel strategies to treat leukemia by targeting these two mechanisms.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Synergistic targeting of metabolic and epigenetic vulnerabilities in leukemia stem cells

TAP Partner

Dimericon is a private biotech company focused on exploring crosslinked helix dimers (Dimericons) as therapeutics and templates for small molecule development. Dimericon’s technology targets hard-to-drug intracellular protein-protein interactions using rationally designed mimetics of helix dimers. The Seed round of financing will support preclinical studies to further develop the current cFLIP inhibitor lead compound, DMRX1004, to be an IND ready clinical candidate in hematological malignancies.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

Supporting development of dimericons (crosslinked helix dimers) for blood cancers

Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

Dr. Majeti is Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Hematology, and Member of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a board-certified hematologist. While at Stanford, he completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Irving Weissman, MD, where he investigated acute myeloid leukemia (AML) stem cells and therapeutic targeting with anti-CD47 antibodies. Dr. Majeti directs an active NIH-funded laboratory that focuses on the molecular characterization and therapeutic targeting of leukemia stem cells in human hematologic disorders, particularly AML, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Clonal Evolution of Pre-Leukemic Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Human Myeloid Malignancies

Personalized Metabolic Targeting of Epigenetic AML Mutations Through the Alpha-Ketoglutarate Pathway