Who We Fund

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Philippe Armand, MD, PhD, is the Chief of the Lymphoma Division and the Harold and Virginia Lash/David Lash Chair in Lymphoma Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Armand’s research interests center on the treatment of lymphoma. His primary research focus is the study of immunotherapy to improve the efficacy of treatment and the outcome of patients with a variety of lymphoma types. Other areas of specific research interest are the study of CAR-T therapy in lymphoma and the development of next-generation assays to characterize, track and target tumors, especially aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin Lymphomas and Hodgkin Lymphoma. After earning his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University, Dr. Armand received his Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of California at San Francisco. He completed his internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and fellowship training at DFCI.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Checkpoint-Based Immunotherapy in Follicular Lymphoma

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

University of California, San Francisco

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Towards Risk-Adapted Therapeutic Strategies in CNS Lymphoma

Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Ding is the Gurewitsch and Vidda Foundation Associate Professor of Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, Department of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University Medical Center. His laboratory studies mechanisms, particularly cell extrinsic mechanisms, that regulate blood forming stem cells, and how dysregulation of these mechanisms contributes to blood cancers. Dr. Ding’s research has resulted in better characterization of the bone marrow niche in normal and blood cancer disease conditions and may lead to novel therapies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting the interaction of leukemia stem cells with their niche to treat myelofibrosis

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

Mayo Clinic, Rochester

Grzegorz (Greg) Nowakowski, M.D., is a consultant and a Professor of Oncology and Medicine, Division of Hematology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester,Minnesota, where he also serves as the Aggressive B-cell Lymphoma Program Director, the Chairman of Education,and an Advanced Hematology Fellowship Program Director. Dr. Nowakowski received his MD from the Medical University of Warsaw, Poland. He completed his internal medicine residency at Yale University Medical School -Norwalk Hospital, Norwalk, Connecticut and his fellowship in Hematology and Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Dr Nowakowski joined the Mayo Clinic Lymphoma Group in 2006 as a Mayo Foundation Scholar.Heis an alumnus of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Clinical Research Training Institute and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Leadership Development Program. Dr. Nowakowski’s research focuses on the molecular classification and biology of lymphoproliferative disorders,new approaches to clinical trial design and novel therapies for lymphoma and hematological disorders. Heis an investigator in University of Iowa/Mayo Clinic Lymphoma Specialized Center of Research Excellence program, where he leads career enhancement program. Dr. Nowakowski has authored over 200 articles and numerous book chapters. Dr.Nowakowski serves as a principal investigator of multiple investigator-initiated and cooperative group clinical trials(ECOG, Alliance) and industry studies and serves and a member of ECOG Lymphoma Core Committee. Dr.Nowakowski also chairs the Lymphoma Committee and Hematological Malignancy Program in the Academic and Community Cancer Research United (ACCRU) network. He currently serves as a vice Chair of ASH Clinical Trial Innovation Subcommittee chair of ASCO Research Community Forum and ASCO Clinical Trial Access and Participation Taskforce. Dr. Nowakowski has served as Voting Member of the Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Program Name(s)

IMPACT

Project Title

REACH: Recruitment Expansion through community Access to Clinical trials in Hematologic 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

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Dr. Urvi Shah is an Assistant Attending in the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology and received a Master of Science degree in Clinical and Translational Cancer Research. Her research interests include modifiable risk factors (diet, metabolism, microbiome) in cancer. She completed the first pilot nutrition trial in plasma cell disorders to date (NUTRIVENTION) and has 3 other dietary trials enrolling. Dr. Shah has been supported by career development awards (National Cancer Institute [NCI] K12, International Myeloma Society and American Society of Hematology [ASH] Scholar) and research awards (ASH CRTI, ECOG ACRIN Young Investigator Translational Research, Henry Moses, Celgene Future Leaders in Hematology, NCI Early Investigator Advancement Program and Clinical Cancer Research Early Career). She has published papers in prominent journals and has been an invited speaker and chair.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Project Title

A Decentralized Randomized High-Fiber Dietary Trial to Improve Outcomes in Newly Diagnosed Myeloma

Stanford University

I am a physician-scientist and hematologist focused on clinical translation of T-cell biology. I received my MD from Kyushu University, and subsequently completed Residency Training at Toranomon Hospital, the largest transplant center in Japan. I continued my Hematology training at Kyushu University, where I qualified as a Board-certified specialist (2017) and supervisory hematologist (2021) by the Japanese Society of Hematology. For my PhD (2014-19), I studied expression profiles and histologic features of TCLs. I discovered distinct TCL clinical groups identified by infiltrating immune cell patterns in the microenvironment. Based on my dissertation work (Sugio, et al 2018 Blood Advances), I planned and conducted a Phase II trial of PD1 inhibition for relapsed/refractory TCL (UMIN000034499). In 2020, I received a JSPS fellowship to study the TCL microenvironment. I joined the Alizadeh lab at Stanford in 2021, where I am developing tools to analyze immune status using liquid biopsies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

An integrated liquid biopsy framework for surveillance of residual disease and host immune status of T-cell lymphomas

University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus

I am a scientist of Indian origin who moved to the US upon completion of a Master’s in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology degree. I obtained my PhD in Cancer Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the laboratory of Dr. Rob Welner. My PhD project focused on identifying basic mechanisms of drug resistance in blood cancer stem cells. This work culminated in 4 first author and 9 co-author publications. To gain experience in translational research, grant writing and mentoring, I am pursuing postdoctoral studies with Dr. Craig Jordan at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Here, I am leveraging my training in blood cancer and stem cell biology to identify new approaches for targeting malignant stem cells in myelodysplastic syndrome. This training will help me achieve my long-term goal of establishing an independent translational research program to improve outcomes for blood cancer patients and mentor students interested in pursuing a blood cancer research career.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Nicotinamide metabolism is essential for myelodysplastic syndrome stem and progenitor cell function and survival

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

My name is Ivan Odak and I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Brody lab. I am an accomplished researcher with 20 authored papers, 9 of which as first or last author. I obtained my PhD summa cum laude from Hannover Biomedical Research School in Germany, where I also worked as a postdoc in the lab of Reinhold Förster. Though challenging, I find science primarily enjoyable, and I like using my skills to tackle important questions in the field of immuno-therapy. The colleagues see me as tireless force in the workplace and I often use my positive attitude and energy to motivate others. My ultimate goal is to establish my own lab dedicated to research and discovery of cancer immunotherapies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Prevention of antigen escape by modulation of off-target tumor killing in T cells

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. Will has been a group leader at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine since 2016. She obtained her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Freiburg, Germany and underwent further training in hematology/oncology with Dr. Ulrich Steidl. With a passion for and through the lens of stem cell biology, Britta’s laboratory seeks to discover novel therapeutic options for patients with myeloid malignancies. Current research concentrates on two largely uncharted territories in blood stem cell aging and leukemic stem cell maintenance - iron homeostasis and highly selective autophagy. Dr. Will also serves as co-leader of the Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Program and directs the Cancer Stem Cell Pharmacodynamics Unit at the NCI-designated Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center. She is the recipient of prestigious young investigator awards, including from the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, Gilead, AAMDSIF, Feldstein Medical Foundation, and the Leukemia Research Foundation.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Therapeutically actionable molecular safeguards in leukemic stem cells