Who We Fund

City of Hope National Medical Center

Dr. Siddiqi is an associate professor in the Department of Hematology/Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and Director of the chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) program at COH. As an active member of the Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center and the Immunotherapy Center at COH, she has been the institutional and, for some studies, national principal investigator of many phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials involving novel targeted therapies and cellular therapeutics such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in CLL and non-Hodgkin lymphomas. She works closely with Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), cooperative groups, and pharmaceutical companies on important clinical trials in order to bring novel, potentially lifesaving, therapeutics to our patients. As of June 1, 2021, she will be the Lymphoma Medical Director at the Irvine campus, set up open August 2022, which puts her in an ideal position to open impactful hematology clinical trials at CAN sites, starting with Orange county.

Program Name(s)

IMPACT

Project Title

Establishing Hematology Clinical Trial Hubs within the City of Hope Community and Affiliate Network

Oregon Health & Science University

Dr. Maxson is an assistant professor in the Knight Cancer Institute, where she investigates the cellular and molecular changes that cause myeloid leukemias. She pursued her undergraduate studies at Scripps College and then completed her Ph.D. in Cell Biology in the area of protein trafficking and processing. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Drs. Jeff Tyner and Brian Druker, she integrated genomic and functional screening data to identify novel therapeutic targets in leukemia. Notably, Dr. Maxson identified mutations in CSF3R in the vast majority of patients with chronic neutrophilic leukemia. She discovered that these mutations confer sensitivity to JAK inhibitors, which resulted in a clinical trial for these patients. The Maxson laboratory works to understand how genomic changes manifest at the cellular level to promote cancer formation and progression. Her long-term goal is to use this understanding to develop lifesaving treatments for patients with leukemia.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Targeting the interplay between signaling and transcriptional dysfunction in myeloid leukemias

BC Cancer, The University of British Columbia

Dr. Steidl is the Research Director of the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer (CLC) at BC Cancer and Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia in Canada. His expertise are clinical malignant hematology, molecular pathology, genomics and lymphoma biology. Dr Steidl’s research focuses on the pathogenesis of B cell lymphomas, tumor microenvironment biology and applied genomics. Dr Steidl contributed to the discovery of novel somatic gene mutations in B cell lymphomas using next generation sequencing and established tumor microenvironment composition as novel biomarkers for outcome prediction in Hodgkin lymphoma. His leading role in the CLC, associated membership to BCC’s Lymphoma Tumor Group as well as active collaborations with scientific consortia and clinical trials groups enable the use of primary biopsy material as the start and end points of discovery and biomarker studies in his lymphoma program promoting precision oncology.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Targeting aberrant non-canonical NF-κB pathway activation in B-cell lymphomas

The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, Medical Center

Dr. June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and is currently Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. In 2011, his research team published findings detailing a new therapy in which patients with refractory and relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia were treated with genetically engineered versions of their own T cells, CAR-Ts. CTL019, the CAR T cell developed in the June laboratory was the first cell and gene therapy to be approved by the US FDA. He has published more than 500 manuscripts and is the recipient of numerous honors, including a lifetime achievement award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Program Name(s)

Specialized Center of Research Program

Project Title

Pan-heme CAR: Anti-CD38 CAR T cells for myeloid, lymphoid and plasma cell malignancies

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Constantine Mitsiades MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), Harvard Medical School, an Associate member of the Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA, and holds the "Shawna Ashlee Corman" Investigatorship in Multiple Myeloma at DFCI. His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms through which myeloma and other blood cancers interact with the bone marrow microenvironment and develop resistance to existing or investigational drugs or immune therapies, and how to target therapeutically those resistance mechanisms. His studies established that inhibition of BET bromodomain proteins blocks the critical oncoprotein c-Myc. His research also informed the design of several regimens which are now FDA-approved, represent a standard-of-care for MM treatment, and have become a "backbone" for combination with other novel agents, e.g., monoclonal antibodies. Several of these regimens contributed to the increased overall survival of MM patients in the last decade.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Pharmacological strategies to enhance T- and NK-cell-based therapies in blood cancers

University of British Columbia

Dr. Kirk Schultz is a Professor at the University of British Columbia, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, and an elected fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Dr. Schultz is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist focused on new therapies and rejection in Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BMT) and immune therapy of blood cancers. Dr. Schultz is a past recipient of the CIHR/Wyeth Clinical Research Chair in Transplantation, past chair of the Pediatric BMT Consortium the largest children’s BMT clinical trials group world-wide, and president-elect of Cell Therapy and Transplantation Canada (CTTC), the national group for Canadian cell therapy and BMT. Dr. Schultz was the co-chair of the 2020 NIH cGvHD Consensus meeting and past chair of the Biomarkers working group for the previous 2 Consensus meetings (2004 & 2014). Dr. Schultz was the Team leader for the pediatric Applied Biomarkers in Late Effects (ABLE) Team grant (2011 – 2016; $4.3M Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded). Dr. Schultz has 219 publications and 2 CIHR Grants and other smaller funding.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

A Polyomic Approach to Chronic Graft-versus-Host Disease (cGvHD) Biomarkers in Adults

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Marco Ruella obtained his medical degree with high honors and completed his specialization in clinical hematology at the University of Torino, Italy. He was attending physician at the Hematology and Cell Therapy Division of the Mauriziano Hospital and was an Instructor at the Biotechnology School at the University of Torino. From 2012, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow, and then an Instructor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Center for Cellular immunotherapies (Drs. June and Gill). From 2017 to 2018 he served as Associate Director of Dr. June’s laboratory. In 2018, Dr. Ruella was appointed Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies and Scientific Director of the Lymphoma Program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ruella was awarded the inaugural SITC EMD-Serono Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship (2014), the AACR-BMS Oncology Fellowship in Clinical Cancer Research (2015), the ASH Scholar Award (2016), a NIH K99-R00 award (2017), the “Paola Campese” Award Leukemia Research (2017), the Cancer Support Community Award (2018), the 2018 ASH Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement and more recently the Gilead Sciences Research Scholar in Hematology/Oncology and the Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation Award (2020). Dr. Ruella is the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications on targeted immunotherapies for hematological cancers and is an inventor in several patents on CART therapy.

Program Name(s)

HCL2025

Translational Research Program

Project Title

Precision Targeting of Hairy Cell Leukemia using Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cells

A First-in-human Clinical Trial of CD5 knocked-out Chimeric Antigen T Cells for T-cell Lymphomas

Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin

I have a deep passion for understanding how hematological malignancies develop from hematopoietic stem cells. My academic and research background includes studying platelet effects on chemoresistance of leukemic cells, a PhD in cancer biology identifying gene expression profiles in acute B-lymphoblastic leukemia patients, and a position in teaching hematology at Universidad Industrial de Santander. Despite success in having a secure position in a prestigious University in Colombia, limited opportunities for leukemia research prompted a move to the U.S., working at the Icahn School of Medicine in NYC. After two years focusing on modeling hematological malignancies, I shifted to a translational environment in Dr. Michael Deininger's lab, exploring metabolic properties in normal and leukemia stem cells. My ultimate professional goal is to become an independent scientist focused on understanding oncogenic mechanisms in leukemia stem cells and discovering novel treatments for patients.

Program Name(s)

Career Development Program

Project Title

Understanding the role of Metabolic Regulator SIRT5 in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

University of California, San Diego

Thomas Kipps, MD, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Evelyn and Edwin Tasch Chair in Cancer Research, Director of the Center for Novel Therapeutics, and Deputy Director of Research Operations at the UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center. Dr. Kipps is a two-time awardee of a Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) in Leukemia grant from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a two-time awardee of the NIH MERIT Award, and principal investigator of the CLL Research Consortium (CRC), which directed inter-institutional research among the leading investigators in CLL from across the country and abroad. Dr. Kipps is a core member of the international workshop on CLL (iwCLL) and an awardee of the Rai/Binet medal for outstanding contributions to the field of leukemia research.  Dr. Kipps is the current Chair of the NCI Developmental Therapeutics Study Section and Associate Editor for Leukemia.

Program Name(s)

HCL2025

Project Title

Targeting Oncoembryonic Antigens ROR1 and ROR2 For Therapy Of Patients With Hairy Cell Leukemia

University of Minnesota

Helen Parsons, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She has expertise in mixed-methods research, employing a combination of clinical registries, administrative data (e.g., Medicare), surveys and focus groups to understand how adoption of new programs and policies influence reimbursement and health outcomes, including the development and use of survey and administrative data to examine longitudinal health and psychosocial outcomes.

Program Name(s)

Equity in Access

Project Title

The Impossible Choice: The Role of Insurance Design on Financial Toxicity and Access to Care for Individuals with Blood Cancer

Children's Research Institute

Dr. Bollard received her medical degree at the University of Otago. She is board certified both in pediatrics and hematology. She is currently the Bosworth Chair for Cancer Biology, the Director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research, and the Director of the Program for Cell Enhancement and Technologies for Immunotherapy (CETI) at Children’s National Health System. She is a Professor of Pediatrics and of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University and the Associate Center Director for Translational Research and Innovation at the GW Cancer Center. Dr. Bollard is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and is the current President of the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT). She is currently Editor in Chief of Blood Advances. She has over 200 peer reviewed publications. Her bench and translational research focuses on improving outcomes for patients after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and on the development of novel cell therapies for cancer and virus-associated diseases.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

T cells with native and chimeric receptors against multiple tumor targets for acute myeloid leukemia

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

I am an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where I treat patients suffering from leukemias and lymphomas. In my clinical practice, I experience firsthand the lack of treatment options and the poor outcomes in patients with relapsed T cell leukemias and T cell lymphomas. Therefore, my laboratory research focuses on the development of new therapies for the treatment of these T cell cancers. Using my background in T cell biology (Paul et al Immunity 2012, Paul et al Science Signaling 2014) and my collaborators expertise in antibody design, I developed therapies that selectively kill T cell cancers and spare the majority of normal T cells (Paul et al. Sci. Transl. Med. 2021). My goal is to conduct the preclinical validation of the T cell cancer targeting therapies so they can be tested in patients through early phase clinical trials. We hope that our novel therapies will provide new treatment options and improve survival in patients with T cell leukemias and lymphomas.

Program Name(s)

Translational Research Program

Project Title

TCR directed immunotoxins and antibody drug conjugates for the treatment of T cell malignancies