Who We Fund

Emory University

Lawrence Boise, PhD is the R. Randall Rollins Chair of Oncology and Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology in the Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Boise also serves as the Associate Director of Education and Training in the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. He received his PhD from VCU-Medicine and did his postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago. Dr. Boise took his first faculty position at the University of Miami in 1996 and rose to the rank of Professor before moving to Emory in 2009. Dr. Boise was involved in early studies to identify genes that control cell survival and cell death and has been studying these processes to better understand how to improve our treatment of cancer, particularly the plasma cell malignancy multiple myeloma. Dr. Boise serves as a Senior Editor at Molecular Cancer Research and is on the editorial board of Blood Cancer Discovery.

Program Name(s)

Discovery

Project Title

Functional dissection of heterogeneity of responses to CAR T cells using Spatiotemporal Image-guided Genomic and Cellular Analysis (SaGA) in myeloma

Temple University

Tomasz Skorski, MD, PhD, DSc: I serve as the Director of Fels Cancer Institute for Personalized Medicine at Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine and as an Associate Director of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA. My laboratory is focused on determination of the role of DNA repair mechanisms in hematological malignancies, including the potential of therapeutic interventions. We found that leukemia cells accumulate potentially lethal DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), but DNA repair mechanisms protect their survival. However, due to genetic, epigenetic and metabolomic aberrations leukemia cells may employ different DNA repair mechanisms than normal cells. We explore these differences to target leukemia-specific DNA repair mechanisms to achieve synthetic lethality in leukemia cells, with negligible effects on normal cells. These studies will lead to novel therapeutic approaches based on induction of personalized medicine-guided synthetic lethality in leukemias from individual patients.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Precision medicine-guided drugging of DNA repair to induce synthetic lethality in AMLs

Genetic roadmaps to synthetic lethality in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs)

MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. DiNardo is an academic clinical researcher with a primary focus on individualized therapy and precision oncology for myeloid malignancies, including the optimal incorporation of genomics into standard risk assessments and treatment algorithms, and the clinical evaluation of targeted therapeutics for molecularly-defined patient subgroups.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

A precision-based all-oral combination of venetoclax, oral decitabine, and IDH1/2 targeted inhibition for patients with IDH1 or IDH2 mutated AML

Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Dr. Bailee Kain is from Geneseo, IL and received her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Missouri in 2016. She completed her doctoral thesis work at Baylor College of Medicine in Dr. Katherine King's laboratory, where she studied how antigenically diverse pathogens reprogram hematopoietic stem cells to induce innate immune cross-protection. In November 2022, Bailee joined Dr. Lee Grimes lab at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) as a postdoctoral research fellow. In the Grimes lab, she has focused on determining the oncogenic potential of novel variants found in African Ancestry AML patients, including PHIP. Through nominating PHIP as a functional oncogene, she hopes to combat cancer health disparities by making AML screening, risk stratification, and therapeutic strategies more inclusive. Following her training, Bailee's goal to is to develop an independent research program focused on understanding the disease mechanism of ancestry specific variants found in AML.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Functionalizing novel PHIP variants in ancestry-specific acute myeloid leukemia

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

Brigham and Women’s Hospital

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

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

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Dr. Walter’s research focuses on AML. He is particularly interested in improving antibody-based therapies by optimizing existing therapeutics and through the development of novel antigen-directed therapies. As examples of the latter, his lab has helped with candidate drug identification and characterization of 5 agents that have subsequently advanced to clinical testing. A major area of focus of his research lies in the delineation of the mechanisms of action and resistance that are relevant for antibody-based AML therapeutics and the rational development of combination therapies that can overcome drug resistance. Many of his studies conducted over the last 20 years have aimed at optimizing CD33- and, more recently, CD123-targeted therapies. In clinical studies, Dr. Walter conducts trials testing novel treatments and innovative care approaches for AML patients. Furthermore, he uses large datasets to develop and improve diagnostic and prognostic tools for people with AML.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

211Astatine-CD123 Radioimmunotherapy for Cancer (Stem) Cell-Directed Treatment of Acute Leukemia

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Lindsley is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Immunology from Washington University School of Medicine, then completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a member of the MDS Genetics Subcommittee for the NIH National MDS Study, NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine Steering Committee, and the International Working Group for Prognosis in MDS (IWG-PM) molecular committee. The primary focus of his laboratory is the biology and treatment of myeloid malignancies. His genetic studies have led to new genomic models of leukemia classification and MDS outcome after stem cell transplantation. His laboratory uses mouse and cell line models to dissect the mechanistic basis of genetic cooperation during myeloid disease progression, with a specific focus on leukemia initiation in patients with predisposition syndromes and mutations that cause epigenetic alterations.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Genetic pathways of myeloid transformation and treatment response

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

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Mark Murakami is a physician-scientist dedicated to advancing curative treatments for follicular lymphoma. Based in the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. Murakami leads a research group focused on understanding how minute numbers of lymphoma cells survive the initial effect of treatment, persist even when patients are in clinical remission, and later expand to cause relapse. Eradication of these rare cells, called minimal residual disease, is felt to be the key to curing follicular lymphoma. Dr. Murakami has dedicated his career to developing methods for tracking, isolating, and analyzing minimal residual disease and understanding how these cells evade pharmacologic therapy as well as the anti-lymphoma immune response. He uses this information to devise novel treatments for rigorous evaluation – first in the laboratory and eventually in clinical trials run by clinical colleagues – that we hope will cure follicular lymphoma.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Exploiting tumor-immune dynamics to inform curative combination therapy for follicular lymphoma

TAP Partner

Immune-Onc is a private, clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel myeloid checkpoint inhibitors for cancer patients. The company aims to translate unique scientific insights in myeloid cell biology and immune inhibitory receptors to discover and develop first-in-class biotherapeutics that reverse immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment. Immune-Onc has a differentiated pipeline with a current focus on targeting the Leukocyte Immunoglobulin-Like Receptor subfamily B (LILRB) of myeloid checkpoints. Immune-Onc’s focused platform approach has led to the development of several promising therapeutics across various stages of development.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

A phase 1 expansion study of IO-202, an antibody targeting LILRB4, in combination with azacitidine in patients with monocytic differentiation AML and CMML