Who We Fund

Winship Cancer Institute

Dr. Jean Koff is an Associate Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology and Director of the Lymphoma Program’s Translational Research Team at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. Her clinical expertise in lymphoma is complemented by her research characterizing the immunologic and genetic factors that contribute to poor outcomes in lymphoma patient populations under-represented in most studies, such as African Americans and organ transplant recipients. She serves as an investigator on several team science projects involving multi-institutional cohorts of lymphoma patients with integrated analyses of clinical and molecular data, including the Lymphoma Epidemiology of Outcomes cohort study. Dr. Koff is the 2024 Chair of the Scientific Committee on Lymphoid Neoplasia for the American Society of Hematology. Her work has been funded by the Lymphoma Research Foundation, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Cancer Society, and the NIH.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Translating molecular profiles into treatment approaches to target disparities in lymphoma

Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research

Dr. Falchi graduated Cum Laude from the University of Perugia, Italy. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center, residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center. He is currently an Assistant Attending in the Lymphoma and Cellular Therapy Services at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Dr. Falchi’s research focuses on the use of immunotherapy to treat B-cell NHL. He leads multiple such trials nationally and internationally. He authored or co-authored over 75 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, numerous abstracts, and several book chapters. 

Dr. Falchi is Co-Editor-In-Chief of Oncoimmunology, Editorial Board Member for Blood Advances, and recurrent peer-reviewer for high-profile journals. He is recipient of several awards, including a Lymphoma Research Foundation Career Development Award. He is an active member of several scientific societies, including the American Society of Hematology.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Leveraging multispecific antibodies to reshape the treatment landscape of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma

TAP Partner

Solu Therapeutics is a biotechnology company dedicated to developing next-generation therapeutics to eliminate disease-driving cells in cancer, immunology and other therapeutic areas. The company’s proprietary CyTAC (Cytotoxicity Targeting Chimera) and TicTAC (Therapeutic Index Control Targeting Chimera) platforms enable the development of innovative medicines that combine the target-binding capability of small molecules with the therapeutic power of biologics.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 1 study of STX-0712, a CCR2-CyTAC monocyte depletor, in patients with CMML

The Jackson Laboratory

Jennifer Trowbridge is an Associate Professor at The Jackson Laboratory, where she has had her independent laboratory since 2012, and is adjunct faculty at Tufts University School of Medicine and the University of Maine. She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Western Ontario in 2006 and completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Stuart Orkin at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Trowbridge’s research interests span hematopoiesis, stem cell biology, aging, and cancer biology. The current focus of her laboratory is on cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic processes underlying hematopoietic stem cell dysregulation in age-related clonal hematopoiesis and myeloid malignancies. She is a Scholar of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and past recipient of the Janet Rowley Award from the International Society for Experimental Hematology, the V Foundation V Scholar Award, American Society of Hematology Scholar Award, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar Award in Aging.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Discovery of Aging-Driven Mechanisms Causing Clonal Hematopoiesis (CH) and its Progression to Hematological Malignancy

Weill Cornell Medicine

Dr. Wendy Béguelin is a basic and translational research scientist working in the field of lymphoma epigenetics. She obtained her degree of Biology at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she received extensive training in the investigation of cell biology and signal transduction with studies on epigenetic gene regulation and transcription factor binding. As a postdoctoral scientist at Weill Cornell Medical College, under the mentorship of Prof. Ari Melnick she has identified novel epigenetic and transcriptional mechanisms that contribute to B-cell differentiation and lymphomagenesis. She has studied the biological and transcriptional mechanisms of action of Polycomb proteins in germinal center B-cells and lymphomas derived from germinal centers. As Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, Dr. Béguelin is committed to a career in basic/translational cancer research, bringing new ideas into the field of epigenetic control of lymphomagenesis and making discoveries that can be translated from the diagnostic and therapeutic standpoints.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Discovery and therapeutic targeting of novel mechanisms driving Double Hit Lymphomas

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Dr. Brody is Director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at Mount Sinai and a member of the Depart of Immunology. He has developed a robust clinical program and a translational Cancer Immunotherapy Lab which investigates basic and applied tumor immunology to develop novel therapies for lymphomas and CLL with results published in top-tier journals including Nature Medicine and Cancer Discovery.  Dr. Brody has pioneered a therapeutic vaccine approach—in situ vaccination—that induces anti-tumor immunity and regression of tumors throughout the body with clinical results published primarily for Follicular Lymphoma. Recently, his group discovered a novel approach ‘potentiating bystander killnig’ to improve immunotherapies by preventing a common escape mechanism that tumors use to evade CAR-T and bispecific antibody therapies.

Dr. Brody’s research receives funding from numerous grantors e.g. the NIH, Cancer Research Institute, Damon Runyon Foundation, and the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

Program Name(s)

Research Accelerator for Follicular Lymphoma

Project Title

Understanding and targeting rare Ag–(CD19/CD20–) Follicular Lymphoma cells to prevent post-immunotherapy antigen escape

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

I am a Research Scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Omar Abdel-Wahab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree at East China University of Science and Technology and completed my PhD training at the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health in the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences under the mentorship of Dr. Lan Wang. During my graduate studies, I identified an important role of the histone methyltransferase SETD2 in the transformation of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). As an LLS Special Fellow, I will focus on developing novel CAR-T cell therapy targeting cell surface expression of the RNA helicase U5 snRNP200. Moreover, I will explore the mechanistic basis for cell surface localization of U5 snRNP200 on AML cells. I hope that my work has immediate therapeutic potential for the future treatment of AML while shedding important novel insights into the pathobiology of AML.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting the cell surface U5 snRNP complex as a novel immunotherapy for AML

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Letai is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He began his studies in apoptosis and hematologic malignancies as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Stanley Korsmeyer. He then started his own laboratory at Dana-Farber in 2005 and became an LLS Scholar in 2008. His studies in understanding how BCL-2 family members regulate the cell death pathway of apoptosis were instrumental in the translation of the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax to the clinic, where it is now FDA approved for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). His laboratory has been investigating how immune cells used in cancer immunotherapy use apoptosis pathways to kill cancer cells, and how increasing apoptosis signaling in cancer cells might benefit immunotherapy. He is also investigating how reducing apoptosis signaling in immune cells used for immunotherapy might make them work better in cancer patients.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Interrogating T-cell apoptotic priming to improve CAR-T persistence in treatment of lymphoid malignancies

Oregon Health & Science University

Dr. Maxson is an assistant professor in the Knight Cancer Institute, where she investigates the cellular and molecular changes that cause myeloid leukemias. She pursued her undergraduate studies at Scripps College and then completed her Ph.D. in Cell Biology in the area of protein trafficking and processing. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Drs. Jeff Tyner and Brian Druker, she integrated genomic and functional screening data to identify novel therapeutic targets in leukemia. Notably, Dr. Maxson identified mutations in CSF3R in the vast majority of patients with chronic neutrophilic leukemia. She discovered that these mutations confer sensitivity to JAK inhibitors, which resulted in a clinical trial for these patients. The Maxson laboratory works to understand how genomic changes manifest at the cellular level to promote cancer formation and progression. Her long-term goal is to use this understanding to develop lifesaving treatments for patients with leukemia.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting the interplay between signaling and transcriptional dysfunction in myeloid leukemias

Cleveland Clinic

Paolo Caimi is a physician and clinical investigator at the Cleveland Clinic, where he is also the Associate Bone Marrow Transplant Director for Cellular Therapy. Dr. Caimi completed his medical training at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. He finished residency at Johns Hopkins University / Sinai Hospital Residency Program in Internal Medicine followed by a hematology and oncology fellowship at Case Western Reserve University. His clinical focus is on the care of patients with lymphoid malignancies and his research is centered around early phase trials, with an emphasis on phase I trials of cellular therapy.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. Dusetzina is an associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and an Ingram associate professor of cancer research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and post-doctoral training at the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard. She is a health services researcher focusing on the intersection between health policy, epidemiology, and economics related to prescription drugs. Dr. Dusetzina’s work has contributed to the evidence base for the role of drug costs on patient access to care and policy changes that might improve patient access and reduce spending on high-priced drugs, including those used to treat cancer. She has been recognized for her work at a national level, including being an invited participant for two working group meetings on “Patient Access to Affordable Cancer Drugs,” hosted by the President’s Cancer Panel, and being selected to co-author a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report on the same topic. Dr. Dusetzina was recently appointed to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and is engaged in national policy related to access to care for Medicare beneficiaries. Dr. Dusetzina will co-direct the project with Dr. Nicholas, who has considerable experience using the Health and Retirement Study to assess economic effects of health.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Making the Right Choice: Medicare Plan Selection and Access to Cancer Care

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Reina Takeda, M.D., Ph. D., is a hematologist and currently a Research Fellow in Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). After receiving her MD in Japan, she completed her clinical training in internal medicine and hematology/oncology. She received her PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2020 for her basic research on epigenetic dysregulation in myeloid malignancies and joined Dr. Scott Armstrong's lab at DFCI in 2022. Her clinical experience as a physician in Japan has inspired her to develop a deeper understanding of the pathogenesis and molecular biology of hematologic malignancies. Her research interests focus on how oncogenic proteins cause transcriptional dysregulation in hematologic malignancies and contribute to their pathogenesis. As a hematology/oncology physician-scientist, her research goal is to translate basic scientific knowledge from the bench to the bedside by identifying novel therapeutics that target key regulatory pathways.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program