Riccardo Dalla-Favera
lymphoma (DLBCL)
Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD
New York, NY
United States
Columbia University Medical Center
Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD, Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, is the founder and Director of the Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University. He has dedicated his 40-year long career to the study of the pathogenesis of B cell malignancies, including B Cell Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and contributed significantly to the understanding of the genetics and biology of these diseases, as quoted in major textbooks of medicine and oncology. These studies have direct impacts on the diagnostics and therapeutic targeting of B cell cancers. His work is widely recognized by numerous National and International prizes and awards, including the 2006 William Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology and the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research GHA Clowes Memorial Award. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Program Name(s)
Discovery
Project Title
Yue Wang, PhD
Los Angeles, CA
United States
University of California, Los Angeles
Yue Wang, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA with extensive expertise in developmental and stem cell biology. He earned his PhD in Regenerative Medicine from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he conducted groundbreaking research on the regulatory mechanisms of trophoblast lineage differentiation. Dr. Wang also developed a stem-cell based organoid model to study Zika virus effects on human placenta. At UCLA, he works with Dr. Hanna Mikkola and uses single cell technologies to understand how Trisomy 21 affects human B cell development and transformation to aggressive form of B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in children with Down Syndrome. His work aims to identify cellular origins and molecular mechanisms driving this unique type of leukemia, offering potential insights for safer and more effective therapies.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Lucas Ferrari De Andrade, PhD
New York, NY
United States
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Hello, I am Lucas Ferrari de Andrade and the principal investigator. I am from Brazil and with my wife we immigrated to the United States in 2014. We now have our two-year old son, born here in New York City. I worked for five years as postdoc at Harvard Medical School, where I developed a molecule that elicits potent anti-tumor immunity. Two years ago I started my own laboratory, to apply this molecule to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). My lab is very productive, in record timing we published our first research article. Our work is supporting a clinical trial by a pharmaceutical company, which does not financially support our lab and that will conduct the trial against solid tumors. Our research will show that AML can also be targeted. However, our research is having huge financial cost and we urgently need new awards to continue developing this potential treatment for AML. My scientific career has focused on the development of new molecules that can be used by doctors to treat cancer.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Optimizing MICA/B antibody for AML by selective binding to Fc activating receptors
Joseph Tuscano, MD
Davis, CA
United States
University of California at Davis
In 1997, I began as an academic physician at UC Davis. I developed a productive, independent laboratory-based research program, and as the Director of Hematologic Malignancies Program created one of the most productive clinical trials programs at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. I currently am the deLeuze Endowed Professor for the non-toxic cure for lymphoma, Director of Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplantation and the interim Division Chief of Malignant Hematology Cellular Therapy and Transplantation.
My research has focused on immune-mediated therapeutics to reduce toxicity and enhance efficacy, including development of antibody drug conjugates, antibody-targeted liposomes, development of alternative natural products, and bi- and tri-specific antibodies.
This work resulted in some 38 publications, 3 VA Merit and 12 intramural awards, and 3 patents (1 pending), which has facilitated ongoing funding of my lab and established me as an expert in targeted immuno-therapeutics.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Gene-edited CD19 CAR-T cells with superior proliferation, persistence and serial-killing activity
Nika Danial, PhD
Boston, MA
United States
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Nika Danial is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she Co-Directs the T32 Training Program in Cancer Chemical Biology and Metabolism. She received a B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Biophysical Studies from Columbia University. Her postdoctoral studies with the late Stanley J. Korsmeyer focused on the role of BCL-2 family proteins in mitochondrial apoptosis, where she discovered a molecular link between cell survival/death regulatory pathways and metabolism. Dr. Danial’s lab studies fundamental aspects of metabolic biology, including causes and consequences of cellular nutrient utilization patterns and metabolic signals that shape cell fate, function, and stress responses. This research has led to advances in metabolic mechanisms that link nutrient signaling to diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
Program Name(s)
Discovery
Project Title
Lipid-dependent regulation of oncogenic signaling in DLBCL growth and therapeutic response
Eugenio Morelli
Myeloma
Eugenio Morelli, MD
Boston, MA
United States
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Eugenio Morelli, MD, is an Instructor in Medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Morelli's research interest is to decode the key oncogenic features of noncoding RNAs (ncRNA) to inform ncRNA-based therapies in multiple myeloma (MM). Dr. Morelli earned his MD degree magna cum laude in 2011 at the Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro (Catanzaro, Italy) and from 2012 to 2017 completed a clinical/research fellowship in Medical Oncology at the same Institution. In 2017, Dr. Morelli joined the Nikhil C Munshi Lab at the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA, USA), where he has been working since then. Dr. Morelli has a demonstrated record of accomplished and productive research projects. In recognition of his research prowess, Dr. Morelli was awarded the International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) Brian D Novis Award and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center SPORE in Multiple Myeloma Career Enhancement Award.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Kura Oncology
MLL leukemia, AML
Kura Oncology
San Diego, CA
United States
TAP Partner
Kura Oncology is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to realizing the promise of precision medicines for the treatment of cancer. The Company’s pipeline consists of small molecule drug candidates that target cancer signaling pathways.
Program Name(s)
Therapy Acceleration Program
Project Title
Alba Rodriguez-Meira, PhD
Boston, MA
United States
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
I was an endlessly curious child who wanted to become a scientist. But it was my own experience as a teenager in a Pediatric Hospital Unit that shaped my scientific passion, where I became friends with children affected by leukemia. I was shocked by the terrible implications of this disease and became determined to design new therapies to fight it.
Inspired by this experience, I studied cancer biology at top institutions across Europe and the US. I wanted to understand how leukemia originated, and how it evolved to become an aggressive and hard-to-treat disease.
As a PhD student at the University of Oxford, I developed new sequencing technologies to understand how leukemia arises and evolves inside each individual cell. My deep passion for leukemia research later brought me to Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where I am currently studying the earliest molecular changes that predispose to leukemia, aiming to prevent leukemia from developing in the first place.
Project Title
William Matsui
Myeloma
William Matsui, MD
Austin, TX
United States
The University of Texas at Austin
William Matsui is a Professor of Oncology, Director of the Hematologic Malignancy Program, Associate Chair of Research, and the Deputy Director of the LiveSTRONG Cancer Institutes at the Dell Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as the interim Vice Dean of Research for Dell Med. Dr. Matsui's research has focused on understanding the intersection between cancer, stem cell, and developmental biology. His laboratory first identified unique populations of cancer cells with stem cell properties in multiple myeloma and found that several pathways regulating normal stem cells, including those involved in embryonic development, are abnormally activated in cancer stem cells. Importantly, these basic research studies have simultaneously been translationally relevant and served as the basis for over a dozen novel clinical trials.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Stem cell features and Notch signaling in p53 deleted multiple myeloma
Michael Bern, MD, PhD
St. Louis, MO
United States
Washington University in St. Louis
Dr. Bern is a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Timothy Ley’s lab at Washington University School of Medicine and a clinical fellow in the Hematology and Oncology program. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Physics from Duke University. Following undergraduate, he completed M.D./Ph.D. training at Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned his Ph.D. in Immunology, studying mechanisms regulating natural killer cell activation, in the laboratory of Dr. Wayne Yokoyama. He then joined the Physician Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine for Internal Medicine residency and Heme/Onc fellowship. His current research is focused on understanding mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance in Primary-Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia. His long-term goal is to identify novel therapeutic strategies for this population of patients with extremely poor outcomes and few treatment options.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Tomasz Skorski
myeloproliferative neoplasms, AML
Tomasz Skorski, PhD, MD, DSc
Philadelphia, PA
United States
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)
Eric Vick, MD, PhD
Cincinnati, OH
United States
University of Cincinnati
Dr. Eric Vick is a physician-scientist and instructor at the University of Cincinnati focused on novel translational therapies for myeloid neoplasia. He is originally from Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Vick obtained his B.S. in Biological Sciences in 2009 from the University of Tennessee, and then his Ph.D. in Molecular Biosciences in 2014. He then earned his M.D. from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2018 after which he matched into the Physician-Scientist Training Program at the University of Cincinnati, combining his residency, fellowship, and a dedicated post-doctoral fellowship. He graduated his clinical training in Hematology and Oncology in 2023. Since 2022 Dr. Vick has been working in the Starczynowski Lab, where his project focuses on modalities to combine inflammatory modulation through inhibition of IRAK4 with other small molecule inhibitors. He also studies changes in cancer cells following treatment failure with conventional therapies.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Targeting Myeloid Malignancies through IRAK4 Synthetic Lethality Dependencies