Who We Fund

The University of Adelaide

Associate Professor Daniel Thomas is a Stanford-trained physician scientist who leads the Myeloid Metabolism Laboratory in the Precision Medicine Theme of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute at the University of Adelaide, Australia. As a clinician, Dan is passionate about direct bench to bedside translation and leads several innovative mutation-directed precision medicine clinical trials for blood cancers in Australia. Dan has published more than 48 peer-reviewed papers and he has received 16 prizes for his research including the Albert-Baikie Medal and highly competitive funding (CSL Centenary Fellowship, Snowdome and K99-R00 NCI Pathway to Independence award.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Identification and Molecular Analysis of Pre-Myelofibrotic Stem Cells

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

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Dr. Carrasco earned his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Chile. Motivated by his desire to practice medicine at the highest level, he immigrated to the USA and pursued a residency in anatomic pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital followed by a fellowship in hematopathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In recognition to his research accomplishments in the field of multiple myeloma (MM) during his postdoctoral training he was recruited to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to develop an independent laboratory research program in MM. Dr. Carrasco is current Professor in Pathology at Harvard Medical School. His principal area of excellence is laboratory and clinical investigation focusing on understanding the roles of the Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway in MM pathogenesis, with the threefold intent of (i) identifying novel therapeutic targets, (ii) developing novel targeted therapies, and (iii) developing animal models for preclinical and clinical intervention.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Developing selective inhibitors of the b-catenin/BCL9 transcriptional complex for myeloma therapy

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 leukemia

Medical College of Wisconsin

Siegfried Janz, MD, DSc, Professor and William G. Schuett, Jr., Multiple Myeloma Endowed Chair directs translational myeloma research at the Division of Hematology, Oncology & Bone Marrow Transplantation, Department of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee. After obtaining his medical degree and board certification in Clinical Immunology from Leipzig University Medical School, Germany, he received advanced training in genetic and biological pathways of myeloma development at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland. In 2018 he relocated his laboratory to Milwaukee, where he works in close association with his clinical colleagues to enhance our understanding of the natural history of myeloma and improve myeloma treatment and outcomes. His ongoing efforts concentrate on the design and testing of novel immunotherapies that rely on patient-derived T lymphocytes to seek out and kill myeloma.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Improving outcomes of multiple myeloma using TGF-beta resistant BCMA-targeted CAR T cells

Fox Chase Cancer Center

I completed my Ph.D. training with Dr. Michelle Kelliher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, studying the ubiquitin-dependent signal transduction pathways. With this foundation, I joined Dr. Louis Staudt’s laboratory at the National Cancer Institute as a research fellow in 2010 to exploit the roles of innate immune signaling and protein ubiquitination machinery in the pathogenesis of Diffuse Large B cell lymphoma. In 2015, I received an NCI Transition Career Development Award to further investigate the roles of immune signaling and protein ubiquitination in lymphoid malignancies. I accepted a tenure track faculty position and started my lab at Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) as an Assistant Professor in May 2016. At FCCC, I decided to shift my studies to the field of Peripheral T-Cell lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma, which have minimal available targeted therapy options currently. The main focus of my laboratory is to understand the immune regulatory pathways in these lymphoid malignancies.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Analysis and therapeutic targeting of the immune regulatory and ubiquitination pathways in Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma and Hodgkin Lymphoma

Cleveland Clinic

Paolo Caimi is a physician and clinical investigator at the Cleveland Clinic, where he is also the Associate Bone Marrow Transplant Director for Cellular Therapy. Dr. Caimi completed his medical training at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. He finished residency at Johns Hopkins University / Sinai Hospital Residency Program in Internal Medicine followed by a hematology and oncology fellowship at Case Western Reserve University. His clinical focus is on the care of patients with lymphoid malignancies and his research is centered around early phase trials, with an emphasis on phase I trials of cellular therapy.

Program Name(s)

Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT)

Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Tyler Parsons completed his PhD research at Oakland University and the Beaumont Research Institute in the lab of Dr. Gerard Madlambayan where he published on the role of blood stem cells in tumor response to radiation therapy. During the final year of his PhD, he was diagnosed with a myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) which directed his career focus and passion to furthering the understanding of MPNs and their transformation potential to leukemia. To this end, he joined the lab of Dr. Grant Challen at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis) where he is investigating clonal evolution in MPNs and the mutational trajectory leading to secondary leukemia. The aim of his post-doctoral fellowship is to describe the clonal architecture of MPN disease progression to leukemia which could lead to early detection and improved disease surveillance. He is passionate about improving outcomes for patients by advancing our understanding of both the biology and disease evolution of MPNs.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Mechanisms of Clonal Evolution in the Transformation of MPN to sAML

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 Michigan

Dr. Jolanta Grembecka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology, University of Michigan. Dr. Grembecka’s research is focused on development of small molecule inhibitors of proteins involved in leukemogenesis. Her laboratory has developed the first small molecule inhibitors of the menin-MLL1 interaction as a treatment for acute leukemia, which were advanced to clinical studies in acute myeloid leukemia patients. Her laboratory is also developing new targeted therapies for hematologic cancers by blocking novel epigenetic targets, including ASH1L histone methyltransferase.

Dr. Grembecka has received PhD in Chemistry at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland. She completed postdoctoral training in drug discovery at the University of Virginia and in 2009 started her independent position at the University of Michigan. Dr. Grembecka is a co-author on over 80 scientific publications and an inventor on 15 patents. She is LLS Scholar and ACS Research Scholar recipient.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

ASH1L degradation as a new treatment for acute leukemia

Targeted combination therapies for leukemia with NUP98 translocations

University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Rubenstein is an internationally recognized authority on the research and treatment of patients with primary and secondary CNS lymphoma. He has led or co-led multiple innovative multi-center phase I and II clinical trials that have impacted clinical management guidelines, including studies of novel induction strategies, immunomodulatory drugs, intraventricular rituximab therapy and dose intensive consolidation. He has led multiple studies on the biology of CNS lymphoma involving tumor diagnostic specimens, preclinical models as well as pioneering studies using novel technologies to gain insights into the brain tumor microenvironment. His studies on CNS lymphoma have been consistently published in high impact journals for nearly two decades and he has been the principal investigator of multiple NCI grants focused on this disease. He has mentored ~40 trainees, many of whom are now focused on the treatment of lymphoma patients in the academic setting.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Washington University in St. Louis

John F. DiPersio MD, PhD is the Golman Professor of Medicine and Director of The Center for Gene and Cellular Immunotherapy at the Washington University School of Medicine. His research has focused on targeting key elements of the hematopoietic niche for optimal stem cell mobilization and chemosensitization, mitigating GvHD in T cell replete transplants, understanding the genomic alterations in AML, and developing and testing in the clinic novel therapeutics and immuno-therapeutics, including cellular therapies, for the treatment of AML, ALL, T/B-NHL and multiple myeloma. Dr. DiPersio was instrumental in the development and FDA approval of Plerixafor, Motixafortide, and Ruxolitinib. He is the recipient of multiple awards and was past president of the ASTCT and member of the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors. He has authored or co-authored more than 490 publications, is a co-founder of two companies (WUGEN and Magenta) and holds multiple patents.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

KT1, a novel NK trispecific antibody for the treatment of AML and MDS