Who We Fund

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Constantine Mitsiades MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), Harvard Medical School, an Associate member of the Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA, and holds the "Shawna Ashlee Corman" Investigatorship in Multiple Myeloma at DFCI. His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms through which myeloma and other blood cancers interact with the bone marrow microenvironment and develop resistance to existing or investigational drugs or immune therapies, and how to target therapeutically those resistance mechanisms. His studies established that inhibition of BET bromodomain proteins blocks the critical oncoprotein c-Myc. His research also informed the design of several regimens which are now FDA-approved, represent a standard-of-care for MM treatment, and have become a "backbone" for combination with other novel agents, e.g., monoclonal antibodies. Several of these regimens contributed to the increased overall survival of MM patients in the last decade.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Pharmacological strategies to enhance T- and NK-cell-based therapies in blood cancers

Durham VA Health Care System

Dr. Friedman is a hematologist-oncologist at the Durham VA Health Care System (DVAHCS) and National TeleOncology (NTO) Program, a Professor at the Duke University School of Medicine, and is the Deputy Director of the VA National Oncology Program. She is the DVAHCS site PI for the NCI and VA Interagency Group to Accelerate Trials Enrollment (NAVIGATE) program, which facilitates enrollment of Veterans with cancer into NCI-funded clinical trials. She is the lead for the Cancer Clinical Research Service (CCRS) in NTO, which offers clinical trial navigation to Veterans with cancer and runs decentralized cancer clinical trials across the VA network.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

REACH: Researching & Enhancing Access to Clinical trials in Veterans with Hematologic cancers

Weill Cornell Medicine

Dan Landau, MD, PhD is Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a Core Member of the New York Genome Center. He is an hemato-oncologist whose long-term goal is to develop novel approaches to address cancer evolution as a central obstacle to cure. His research group is funded by the NCI, NHLBI and NHGRI, and his work has led to recognition and awards including Stand Up to Cancer, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Vallee Scholar, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Defining the role of DNA methylation modifier mutations in reshaping blood differentiation topology

Maine Medical Center

Dr. Michaela Reagan is a Faculty Scientist II at the MaineHealth Institute for Research and an Associate Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. She received her B.S. in general Engineering from Harvey Mudd College (2006) and Ph.D. from Tufts University in Biomedical Engineering in the field of breast cancer bone metastasis (2011). She then performed her post-doctoral research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Irene Ghobrial (2011-2015). Dr. Reagan is a member of the Finance Committee of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) and is the past chair of the ASBMR’s Women’s Committee. Since 2015, she has led innovative, transdisciplinary, basic and translational research in the Reagan Laboratory at MaineHealth with the goal of identifying cancer vulnerabilities that can lead to new treatments or cures for multiple myeloma (MM) patients. Her unique research is focused on the interactions between obesity, adipocytes and myeloma cells.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Multiple Myeloma Support from the Microenvironment: Bone Marrow Adipocytes and the Fatty Acid Binding Proteins

The University of Melbourne

I am a bioinformatician and postdoctoral fellow at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center working in the cancer epigenetics laboratory led by Professor Mark Dawson. Through my postdoctoral and Ph.D. training, I have developed a rare and important skill set that encompasses proficiency in both molecular and computational biology. My career to date has pursued an understanding of how epigenetic mechanisms regulate gene expression in cells and how we can combine clever molecular biology with novel computational techniques to reveal new insights in these areas. In the context of cancer, I have a particular interest in haematological malignancies and seek to understand the role that epigenetics and transcriptional regulation play in the development of therapeutic resistance to conventional, targeted, and immune-based therapies. My research aims to develop novel biological and computational tools to identify and circumvent these processes for the successful treatment of cancer.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting non-genetic mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

Northwestern University

Dr. Jaehyuk Choi is an Associate Professor of Dermatology and of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He received his A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard, and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale. He was a dermatology resident and a post-doctoral fellow in genetics at Yale. Since graduating from medical school, Dr. Choi is the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award, the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, the Doris Duke Clinician Scientist Development Award, and is a recent inductee into the American Society for Clinical Investigation.  Dr. Choi is a clinically active physician-scientist with a clinical and scientific focus on T cell lymphomas. His research group is interested in bench-to-bedside approaches to improve clinical care for patients with these diseases. To do so, he investigates the genetic mechanisms that underlie disease pathogenesis. This approach provides important clues as to what makes each patient unique and how to improve treatments for patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Identification of novel therapeutic strategies for aggressive subtypes of CTCL

University of Virginia

Dr. Hao Jiang is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Dr. Jiang studied regulation of immunity in our lymphocytes during his PhD studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He then did postdoctoral research with Robert Roeder at the Rockefeller University, studying how the chemical modifications of chromatin (the basic platform of our genetic information) control how much our cells turn on the expression of the genetic information. These studies set the stage for his independent research, starting in 2011, on how chromatin-regulatory proteins control normal and malignant blood cell formation. Dr. Jiang’s research aims to understand the mechanisms underlying the development of blood cancer at the molecular level, and how to develop new treatment strategies based on these mechanisms.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Targeting aberrant epigenetic condensates in myeloid malignancies

The Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Inc.

Christopher Hergott, M.D., Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Associate Pathologist in hematopathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Rochester and his medical and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed residency (and chief residency) in Clinical Pathology and a clinical fellowship in Hematopathology at BWH before beginning his postdoctoral research training in the laboratory of Dr. Benjamin Ebert at DFCI. Christopher's research interests lie at the intersection of inflammation and hematopoiesis, with a particular focus on clonal hematopoiesis and its progression to myeloid malignancies. In his free time, Christopher enjoys playing guitar, reading, and travelling.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Defining the role of IL-17A in propelling clonal cytopenia of undetermined significance

TAP Partner

Auron is a platform-powered company targeting cell-state plasticity to improve patient outcomes in oncology and inflammatory disease. Auron uses AI and machine learning to compare cell states and identify novel drug targets, optimal development models, and biomarkers to facilitate proper patient selection, ultimately accelerating the development of effective and durable therapies. 

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 1 study of AUTX-703, a KAT2A/B degrader, in patients with AML or MDS

Children's Research Institute

Dr. Bollard received her medical degree at the University of Otago. She is board certified both in pediatrics and hematology. She is currently the Bosworth Chair for Cancer Biology, the Director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research, and the Director of the Program for Cell Enhancement and Technologies for Immunotherapy (CETI) at Children’s National Health System. She is a Professor of Pediatrics and of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University and the Associate Center Director for Translational Research and Innovation at the GW Cancer Center. Dr. Bollard is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and is the current President of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT). She is currently Editor in Chief of Blood Advances. She has over 200 peer reviewed publications. Her bench and translational research focuses on improving outcomes for patients after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and on the development of novel cell therapies for cancer and virus-associated diseases.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

T cells with native and chimeric receptors against multiple tumor targets for acute myeloid leukemia

University of California San Francisco

Dr. Smith is a physician-scientist whose laboratory focuses on therapeutic resistance mechanisms and novel treatment strategies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). She has a particular interest in AML associated with mutations in Fms-like Tyrosine Kinase-3 (FLT3), which is the most frequently mutated gene in AML and associated with resistance to conventional therapy. She has been involved in the development of multiple active FLT3 inhibitors as a clinical-translational investigator. Dr. Smith was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She attended Yale University where she majored in Chemistry, graduated cum laude, and was awarded the Howard Douglas Moore Prize for excellence in chemistry. She attended medical school at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Smith has been the recipient of numerous career development awards, including a prior Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Special Fellow in Clinical Research Award.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

SHP2 and BCL2 Inhibition in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Stanford University

Dr. Kathleen Sakamoto is Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. She has been studying the causes of AML and developing new therapies for the past 30 years. Her research funded by the LLS currently focuses on repurposing a drug used to treat tapeworms, niclosamide, for children with relapsed/refractory AML. Niclosamide is an FDA approved drug and is well tolerated in children. Dr. Sakamoto’s research has resulted in a Phase I clinical trial that will study toxicity, response in AML cells, and drug levels. She is also studying mechanisms of resistance of AML cells to niclosamide to look for drugs that will act synergistically for future clinical trials. Her goal is to take discoveries in the laboratory and translate them to the clinics to improve the overall survival and quality of life in children with AML.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Niclosamide for the treatment of relapsed pediatric acute myeloid leukemia

Niclosamide for the Treatment of Relapsed/Refractory Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia