Who We Fund

The University of Sydney

I am Head of the Cancer and Stem Cell Laboratory, and my research has been focused on leukemia stem cell biology and targeted therapies in the past 15 years. I have an extensive background in leukemia research, with specific training and expertise in stem cell biology, patient-derived preclinical models, CRISPR-genome editing, and single-cell multi-omics. As PI on several NHMRC-funded grants, I laid the groundwork for the proposed research by uncovering new therapeutic targets and mechanisms, and by establishing partnerships with industry that will enable personalized therapies into clinical application. I successfully administered the projects (e.g. staffing, research protections, timeline, budget), collaborated with researchers, and produced publications from each project in leading scientific journals (e.g. Cancer Cell, Blood). The current application builds logically on my prior work. I have the expertise, leadership, and motivation necessary to successfully carry out this project.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Strategic combinations to overcome therapeutic resistance and relapse in acute myeloid leukemia

TAP Partner

BioInvent International AB is a clinical-stage biotech company that discovers and develops novel and first-in-class immuno-modulatory antibodies for cancer therapy, with currently four drug candidates in five ongoing clinical programs in Phase 1/2 trials for the treatment of hematological cancer and solid tumors, respectively. The Company's validated, proprietary F.I.R.S.T™ technology platform identifies both targets and the antibodies that bind to them, generating many promising new drug candidates to fuel the Company's own clinical development pipeline and providing licensing and partnering opportunities.

Program Name(s)

Therapy Acceleration Program

Project Title

A phase 1/2 study of BI-1206, a monoclonal antibody to CD32b (FcyRIIB), in combination with rituximab and acalabrutinib in patients with indolent NHL that has relapsed or is refractory to rituximab

A phase 2 study of BI-1808, a monoclonal antibody to TNFR2, as a single agent and in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with solid tumors and CTCL

The University of Melbourne

Professor Dawson is the Associate Director for Research Translation, a Program Head in Laboratory Research and a Consultant Haematologist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. His research interest is studying the role of epigenetic regulators in the initiation, maintenance and progression of cancer. His current research spans cell and molecular biology, functional genomics, cancer immunology, chemical biology and clinical translation. He is the Sir Edward Dunlop Fellow for the Cancer Council of Victoria and a HHMI International Research Scholar. In recognition of his research achievements, he has been elected to the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and an EMBO member. He has received several prestigious awards including the McCulloch & Till Award from the International Society of Experimental Haematology, the Jacques Miller Medal from the Australian Academy of Science and the Prime Minister’s Prize as Life Scientist in 2020.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Understanding molecular determinants of immune evasion to CAR-T cells at single clone resolution

Stanford University

Dr. Lori Muffly MD MS is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Dr. Muffly is a clinician and clinical investigator whose research includes both health outcomes and clinical trials pertaining to adults with acute leukemia. Her clinical practice serves adults across Northern California with advanced acute leukemias who require hematopoietic cell transplantation and other cellular immunotherapies. She has a specific research interest in improving access to specialty cancer care and reducing health disparities in young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and has published extensively on these topics. She also serves as the PI of multiple investigator-initiated health outcomes studies and clinical trials, including studies evaluating measurable residual disease in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia, novel chimeric antigen receptor T cell studies for acute leukemia, and she leads a recently established real world consortium investigating outcomes following cellular therapies administered to adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Dr. Muffly has successfully collaborated with Drs. Parsons and Keegan on several previous studies and publications related to adolescent and young adult leukemia and access to cancer care and has delivered numerous national talks on the subject.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

Towards Equity in Specialized Cancer Care for Adolescents and Young Adults with Newly Diagnosed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

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

The Ohio State University

I am an Associate Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University. My laboratory investigates epigenomic, genetic and other molecular features of a broad range of hematological malignancies, with a focus on B cell lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia. I explores high-throughput epigenetic and molecular profiling data and combines these analyses with functional evaluation of key genes and molecular pathways. My laboratory is interested in the developmental origins of epigenetic programs in lymphoid and myeloid malignancies and aims to uncover the ontogeny of disease development. Current research focuses on investigating genes that function in establishing aberrant global epigenetic states and landscapes. Beyond fundamental tumor biology, I aims to develop novel molecular diagnostics for clinical stratification and prediction of treatment response, as well as the identification of novel therapeutic targets.

Program Name(s)

Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Initiative

Project Title

Harnessing the epigenome to advance the classification and understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying hairy cell leukemia variant patients

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Dr. John Crispino is Chief of the Division of Experimental Hematology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He received his PhD from MIT for research on the mechanisms of RNA splicing performed in the laboratory of Dr. Phillip Sharp and then performed post-doctoral hematology research at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Stuart Orkin. Dr. Crispino and members of his laboratory have made many important contributions to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of normal and aberrant blood development. Currently, his research is focused on the role of GATA1 in blood cell development, mechanisms of leukemogenesis in children with Down syndrome and the characterization of genetic changes that drive malignant progression of MDS and MPN. He has authored over 170 manuscripts, with recent papers in Cancer Discovery, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Blood. Dr. Crispino is a recent Associate Editor of Blood, on the editorial boards of Leukemia and Blood Cancer Journal and past chair of an NIH study section.

Program Name(s)

Special Grants

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Aberrant Megakaryopoiesis in the MPNs

Understanding Leukemia in Children with Down Syndrome to Develop Better Therapies

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Nicoletta Cieri is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before joining DFCI, Nicoletta obtained her MD degree summa cum laude and mention of honor, PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Clinical Specialization in Hematology summa cum laude from San Raffaele University, Italy, in 2010, 2014 and 2020, respectively. Nicoletta's research interests include genomics, proteomics, immunology and gene therapy applied to the field of onco-hematology. She is committed to define how to manipulate the immune response to recognize and eradicate hematological malignancies, while mitigating detrimental effects such as graft-versus-host disease, off-target toxicities and immune overactivation. Honors include Jon J. Van Rood Award and Basic Science Award from the European Bone Marrow Transplantation Society, Mundipharma Hematology Award from the Italian Society of Hematology, AACR-Incyte Immuno-Oncology Research Fellowship, and Helen Gurley Brown Fellowship.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

TCR-like CARs targeting GvL mHAgs for the treatment of post-transplant AML relapse

University of Florida

Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Doulatov is an Associate Professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. His laboratory investigates how normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) transform into blood cancers. As an undergraduate at UCLA with Dr. Jeff Miller, he discovered a new class of retroelements. As a Ph.D. student with Dr. John Dick at the University of Toronto, he helped establish the “roadmap” of the human HSC and progenitor hierarchy. As a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. George Daley at Harvard, he identified methods to promote HSC development from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). These advances have enabled the use of iPSCs as a platform for disease modeling and drug screens, leading to the discovery of a drug for inherited anemia. The Doulatov laboratory is using human iPSCs and HSCs to discover how oncogenic mutations cooperate to transform normal stem cells into leukemias. His long-term goal is to develop treatments that target malignant stem cells leading to lasting remissions for patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Modeling and targeting leukemic transformation of human hematopoietic stem cells

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Robert Orlowski, the Principal Investigator of this proposal, serves as the Florence Maude Thomas Cancer Research Professor and Director of the Myeloma Section at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and is the Deputy Chair of the Department of Lymphoma & Myeloma. Also, Dr. Orlowski serves as the Chair of the SWOG Barlogie/Salmon Myeloma Committee, which is part of the National Clinical Trials Network that conducts studies to advance novel therapies for myeloma, and to expand our understanding of its biology. In the laboratory arena, Dr. Orlowski is a physician scientist whose focus has been on bench-to-bedside research that develops and validates novel therapies to improve patient outcomes, and focuses on drug resistance mechanisms that may serve as predictive biomarkers for response. His past work has included leading roles in the development of the proteasome inhibitors bortezomib and carfilzomib, as well as the monoclonal antibodies daratumumab and elotuzumab.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Translational Research Program

Project Title

SCOR in High-Risk Plasma Cell Dyscrasias

Targeting HSP70 to Immune Effector Cells to Overcome the Immune Suppressive Myeloma Microenvironment

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

I am a translational lymphoma researcher and associate professor at the NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center (PCC). My research focuses on the relationship between lymphoma, microenvironment, and systemic immunity. I lead an R01 funded study of the microbiome in DLBCL, and and serve as PI on a multi-investigator R01 investigating new immune strategies for CAR T cells. I have presented data on immune profiling in Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) at national and international meetings. Clinically, I have led the effort to integrate immune based approaches into lymphoma therapy, through development of the intergroup Phase 2 protocol E4412 combining brentuximab, nivolumab, and ipilimumab in relapsed HL. I have obtained funding for my research from: the NCI, the ACS, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, Doris Duke (internally awarded), and the NCI Clinical Investigator Team Leader Award for my work with ECOG-ACRIN. My expertise in lymphoma immunology makes me well qualified to lead this current project.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

T cell Memory in Cure of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma: An Investigation of the Immune Interactome