Reina Takeda
AML
Reina Takeda, MD, PhD
Boston, MA
United States
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Mechanisms of oncogenic transcription in NPM1-mutant myeloid leukemia
Omar Elganzouri,
New York, NY
United States
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Coming soon.
Program Name(s)
Student Mentorship and Research Training (SMART)
Project Title
Therapeutic potential of mitochondrial transplantation in the treatment of MDS
Caribou Biosciences
immunotherapy, allo-CAR, NHL, MM
Caribou Biosciences
Berkeley, CA
United States
TAP Partner
Caribou is a clinical-stage biotechnology company, co-founded by CRISPR pioneer and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., using next-generation CRISPR genome-editing technology to develop “off-the-shelf” (allogeneic) CAR therapies for hard-to-treat blood cancers.
Program Name(s)
Therapy Acceleration Program
Project Title
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
Jennifer Woyach
CLL trials
Jennifer Woyach, MD
Columbus, OH
United States
The Ohio State University
I am a tenured Professor in the Division of Hematology at The Ohio State University, with a focus on translational research in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, the Associate Director for Clinical Research within the Division of Hematology, the Section Head for the CLL/Hairy cell leukemia group, and the co-leader of the Leukemia Research Program within the OSUCCC. I am the PI for multiple early-stage clinical trials investigating novel targeted therapies for CLL and other hematologic malignancies, chaired the intergroup Phase III study A041202 which investigated chemoimmunotherapy versus targeted therapy as initial therapy for older adults with CLL, and now chair A041702 which is investigating continuous versus intermittent targeted therapy in the same patient population. My laboratory research focuses on resistance to targeted therapies in CLL. Our group identified C481S and PLCG2 mutations as the primary resistance mechanisms for covalent BTK inhibitors and were the first to investigate reversible BTK inhibitors preclinically as a strategy to circumvent BTK inhibitor resistance.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Project Title
Inhibition of PKCβ as a strategy for BTK inhibitor refractory CLL
Oreofe Odejide
Equity in Access
Oreofe Odejide, MD
Boston, MA
United States
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dr. Odejide is a health services researcher, a hematologic oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research aims to improve outcomes and care delivery for patients with blood cancers throughout their disease trajectory. A substantial proportion of her work has focused on improving end-of-life (EOL) care for this patient population. For example, her work demonstrated that EOL quality measures developed for patients with solid malignancies are also applicable for patients with blood cancers (JCO, 2016). She also has extensive experience using insurance claims-based data (Medicare and Private) to identify potential solutions to improve EOL care. Dr. Odejide is interested in translating her work to impact policy. For example, she synthesized findings from her research and that of others to propose potential policy solutions to reduce barriers to high-quality EOL care for patients with blood cancers (JAMA, 2016). Her research was also part of the body of work used to support the American Society of Hematology 2019 policy statement to address barriers to high-quality hospice services for patients with blood cancers.
Program Name(s)
Equity in Access
Project Title
Health Insurance and End-of-Life Care for People with Hematologic Malignancies
Hong Wen
AML
Hong Wen, PhD
Grand Rapids, MI
United States
Van Andel Research Institute
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Epigenetics at Van Andel Institute. My research is focused on epigenetic regulation of gene expression during blood cell formation and in the pathogenesis of blood cancer. I obtained PhD in Biochemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001 and joined Dr. Joseph Lipsick’s laboratory at Stanford University for my postdoctoral training, where I became interested in blood cancer research. In 2008, I joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a research track Assistant Professor, where I made seminal discoveries of the ENL protein as a novel histone acetylation reader and an attractive new therapeutic target for acute leukemias. In 2018, I started my independent lab at Van Andel Institute studying epigenetic regulation of gene expression in blood cancers. The overarching goal of my research is to understand and target ENL in acute leukemias. My long-term research goal is to translate our discoveries at bench to help leukemia patients in the clinic.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Investigating and targeting the histone acetylation reader protein ENL in acute leukemias
Lorenzo Falchi, MD
New York, NY
United States
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dr. Falchi graduated Cum Laude from the University of Perugia, Italy. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center, residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center. He is currently an Assistant Attending in the Lymphoma and Cellular Therapy Services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Falchi’s research focuses on the use of immunotherapy to treat B-cell NHL. He leads multiple such trials nationally and internationally. He authored or co-authored over 75 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, numerous abstracts, and several book chapters.
Dr. Falchi is Co-Editor-In-Chief of Oncoimmunology, Editorial Board Member for Blood Advances, and recurrent peer-reviewer for high-profile journals. He is recipient of several awards, including a Lymphoma Research Foundation Career Development Award. He is an active member of several scientific societies, including the American Society of Hematology.
Program Name(s)
Career Development Program
Project Title
Enrico Tiacci
Hairy cell leukemia
Enrico Tiacci, MD
University of Perugia. Department of Medicine and Surgery
Dr. Enrico Tiacci is a physician scientist who established an independent translational and clinical research program in leukemias and lymphomas at the University and Hospital of Perugia, where he is Associate Professor of Hematology. His most relevant scientific contributions to pathogenesis, diagnosis and therapy of blood cancers span Hodgkin lymphoma, acute myeloid leukemia and, within the field of HCL, include the discovery of BRAF mutation as the genetic cause of this disease, its diagnostic exploitation and its therapeutic targeting in the clinic, which radically changed the understanding of HCL and considerably improved its treatment. For his achievements (mostly published in the highly influential New England Journal of Medicine), Dr. Tiacci received several prestigious national and international prizes as well as scientific grants from the most competitive international research agencies, including the European Research Council and Blood Cancer United.
Program Name(s)
Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Initiative
Project Title
BRAF inhibition as an alternative to chemotherapy in the treatment strategy of hairy cell leukemia
Matteo Bellone
Smoldering multiple myeloma
Matteo Bellone, MD
Lombardia,
Italy
Fondazione Centro San Raffaele
Dr. Matteo Bellone obtained an M.D. degree (with honors) and was Board Certified in Allergology and Clinical Immunology at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. He had a 3-year post-doctoral training at the University of Minnesota working on autoimmunity with Bianca Conti-Fine. Since the early nineties he has been investigating interactions between cancer and immune cells with discoveries leading to several clinical outputs. He is Head of the Cellular Immunology Unit at Ospedale San Raffaele (Milan, Italy), where he also practices as Clinical Immunologist. He is adjunct professor of Immunology at Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Associate Editor at Frontiers in Immunology and Frontiers in Oncology, and member of several boards serving scientific journals and charities. He is Secretary and Treasurer of the Network Italiano per la BioTerapia dei Tumori (NIBIT), Council Member of the European Network for Cancer Immunotherapy (ENCI), and member of the SIICA, and the AACR.
Program Name(s)
Translational Research Program
Gut microbiota modulation to prevent progression of smoldering multiple myeloma to active disease
Meng Li
Equity in Access
Meng Li, PhD
Houston, TX
United States
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Meng Li is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Health Services Research at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and a nonresident fellow at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California. Dr. Li completed her PhD in Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy at University of Washington, where co-PI, Dr. Flowers also completed his MS. Dr. Li’s research uses various data sources including population-based cancer registries, nationwide administrative claims databases, national survey data, and data from clinical trials and observational series to examine disease burden, factors that influence health care utilization, the effect of health care utilization on health outcomes, and the cost-sharing burden of prescription drugs. In particular, Her research has used Optum and SEER-Medicare data to examine disparity in initiation of immunotherapies among lung cancer and melanoma patients, the association between spending on several types of treatment and outcomes in breast cancer, and catastrophic spending among cancer patients on oral targeted anticancer medicines. Dr. Li has also developed methods to quantify novel elements of value for medical technologies in economic evaluations, which has important implications on the practice of value assessment. She meets regularly and collaborates with Drs. Shih and Flowers. Dr. Li’s research work has been published in top clinical, health economics, and health policy journals.
Program Name(s)
Equity in Access
Project Title
ImCheck Therapeutics
immunotherapy, AML
ImCheck Therapeutics
Marseille,
France
TAP Partner
ImCheck Therapeutics is designing and developing a new generation of immunotherapeutic antibodies targeting butyrophilins, a novel super-family of immunomodulators. These “first-in-class” activating antibodies may be able to produce superior clinical results as compared to the first-generation of immune checkpoint inhibitors and, when used in combination, to overcome resistance to this group of agents.
Program Name(s)
Therapy Acceleration Program