American Society of Hematology Selects 29 Medical Students for Minority Medical Student Award Program

(WASHINGTON, October 2, 2018) – The American Society of Hematology (ASH) today announced the names of 29 medical students selected to take part in the 2018 Minority Medical Student Award Program (MMSAP). This program encourages eligible underrepresented minority medical students to pursue careers in hematology by supporting them as they conduct their own hematology-related research project in the lab of a research mentor.

MMSAP participants will receive support in the amount of $7,000, which will help cover their research projects and travel expenses to the 60th ASH Annual Meeting in December, where they will present their research findings at the Promoting Minorities in Hematology event. In addition, each student is paired with two ASH mentors: a research mentor who will oversee the research project and a career-development mentor who will guide the participant throughout his or her MMSAP experience and beyond. They will also receive complimentary ASH membership throughout medical school and residency.

ASH offers multiple options to accommodate the schedules of medical students interested in the program. Medical students can participate in a summer-long program, a year-long program, or a flexible program (MMSAP Flex), which allows them to spread out a shorter research experience across one year. These varied options fill existing gaps at critical intervening stages of training in the longitudinal pathway from medical student to hematologist by providing minority trainees with additional opportunities for doing hematology research and interacting one-on-one with both a research and career development mentor.

The MMSAP is one of four programs under ASH’s Minority Recruitment Initiative, a series of programs committed to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities training in hematology-related fields and the number of minority hematologists with academic and research appointments.

The 2018 MMSAP summer participants and their research topics include:

Recipient	Project Title	Research Mentor	Career-Development Mentor
Ijele Adimora The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Hanover, NH	Assessing risk of post-operative bleeding complications around heparin bridging protocol intervention	Monic Drescher, MD Dartmouth Hitchcock Memorial Hospital Hanover, NH	Frederick Lansigan, MD Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Hanover, NH
Jennifer Afranie-Sakyi Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science Chicago, IL	The role of ineffective mitophagy and mitophagy-inducing agents on sickle cell disease	Angela Rivers, MD, PhD University of Illinois Chicago Chicago, IL	Robert Liem, MD Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Chicago, IL
Rachel Alade Frank H. Netter School of Medicine Quinnipiac University North Haven, CT	Identifying risk factors associated with high medical resource utilization in adolescents and young adults with sickle cell disease	Lydia Pecker, MD Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD	Robert Bona, MD Frank H. Netter School of Medicine Quinnipiac University North Haven, CT
Anase Asom Pritzker School of Medicine at The University of Chicago Chicago, IL	The role of BRCA1 in genomic instability and hematopoietic malignancies	Lucy Godley, MD, PhD Pritzker School of Medicine at The University of Chicago Chicago, IL Chicago, IL	Olatoyosi Odenike, MD Pritzker School of Medicine at The University of Chicago Chicago, IL Chicago, IL
Rita Asuquo Central Michigan University College of Medicine Mount Pleasant, MI	Enhancing the anti-tumor activity of off-the-shelf Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) -specific T cells for treatment of EBV+ lymphoma	Rayne Rouce, MD Texas Children's Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine Houston, TX	Tycel Phillips, MD Michigan Medicine Ann Arbor, MI
Lissa Bair University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Ottawa, ON	Reassessing the need for pre-operative transfusions in sickle cell disease patients with a high baseline hemoglobin	Ewurabena Simpson, MD, MPH, FRCP(C), FAAP Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario/University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON	Marc Carrier, MD, MSc, FRCPC University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Ottawa, ON
Mauricio Barreto University of North Carolina School of Medicine Chapel Hill, NC	Clinical investigation of cytokine levels in patients with sickle cell disease undergoing haploidentical nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation	Courtney Fitzhugh, MD Sickle Cell Branch, NHLBI, NIH Bethesda, MD	Georgette Dent, MD UNC School of Medicine Chapel Hill, NC
Elizabeth De Jesus Tufts University School of Medicine Boston, MA	Inherited thrombophilias and the risk of ischemic stroke in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis	Adam Cuker, MD, MS Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA	Natasha M. Archer, MD Boston Children's Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston, MA
Atinuke "Oyin" Dosunmu-Ogunbi University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Pittsburgh, PA	Oxidative stress and neurocognitive dysfunction in sickle cell disease	Enrico Novelli, MD, MS University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA	Gregory J. Kato, MD Vascular Medicine Institute Pittsburgh, PA
Ista Egbeto Tufts University School of Medicine Boston, MA	Understanding the cooperative impact of BCOR and U2AF1 mutations in myelodysplastic syndrome pathogenesis	R. Coleman Lindsley, MD, PhD Dana-Faber Cancer Institute Boston, MA	Gabriela S. Hobbs, MD Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA
Tolulope Fatola Meharry Medical College Nashville, TN	Understanding the difference between clinical trials participants and real-world patients treated for mantle cell lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma	Peter Martin, MD, MS Weill Cornell Medicine New York, NY	Adetola A. Kassim, MD, MS Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Nashville, TN
Aldo Giaimo University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Cincinnati, OH	Exploring the impact of germline mutations on the differentiation of mesenchymal stromal cells into osteocytes	Lucy Godley, MD, PhD The University of Chicago Chicago, IL	Theodosia A. Kalfa, MD, PhD Cincinnati Children's Hospital Cincinnati, OH
Catherine Gutierrez Harvard Medical School Boston, MA	Studying cancer evolution in chronic lymphocytic leukemia using DNA barcode-assisted lineage tracing	Catherine Wu, MD Dana Farber Cancer Institute Boston, MA	Roger Belizaire, MD, PhD Brigham and Women's Hospital Boston, MA
Naima Hashi The Ohio State University College of Medicine Columbus, OH	Cytomegalovirus modulation of miR-29b expression in natural killer cells in acute myeloid leukemia	Robert Baiocchi, MD, PhD The Ohio State University College of Medicine Columbus, OH	Alison Walker, MD The Ohio State University Medical Center Columbus, OH
Nathanaelle “Onyi” Ibeziako Tufts University School of Medicine Boston, MA	BCL11A enhancer editing for the hemoglobinopathies	Daniel Bauer, MD, PhD Harvard University Boston, MA	Abner Louissaint, MD, PhD Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, MA
Sophia LeMaire Howard University College of Medicine Washington, D.C.	Ancestry and genetic admixture mapping for red blood cell antigen alloimmunization in adults with sickle cell disease	James Taylor, MD Howard University Hospital, Center for Sickle Cell Disease Washington, D.C.	David Bodine, PhD National Human Genome Research Institute (NHLBI) at NIH Bethesda, MD
Randolph Lyde, Jr., PhD Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA	Comparative analyses of platelet factor VIII expression by standard bone marrow transplantation versus intraosseous infusion	Mortimer Poncz, MD Children's Hospital of Philadelphia/University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA	Lawrence F. Brass, MD, PhD Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA
Christina Marcelus State University of New York Upstate Medical University Syracuse, NY	Characterization of TRK fusions and response to TRK inhibition in hematologic malignancies	Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center New York, NY	Melody Smith, MD Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center New York, NY
Jacqueline Mercado Michigan State University College of Human Medicine East Lansing, MI	Stimulating translational output in diamond blackfan anemia by targeted inhibition of NLK	Kathleen Sakamoto, MD, PhD Stanford University Stanford, CA	Kenneth Schwartz, MD Michigan State University East Lansing, MI
Pascal Merritt Indiana University School of Medicine Indianapolis, IN	Role of CXCR1 and CXCR2 in cell-cell aggregation in micro-vessels of sickle cell disease mice	Jaehyung Cho, PhD University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago, IL	Rakesh Mehta, MD Indiana University School of Medicine Indianapolis, IN
Mubarik Mohamed The Ohio State University College of Medicine Columbus, OH	Immune checkpoint molecule expression in acute myeloid leukemia	Natarajan Muthusamy, DVM, PhD The Ohio State University College of Medicine Columbus, OH	Sam Penza, MD The Ohio State University College of Medicine Columbus, OH
Chibuikem Nwizu Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University Providence, RI	Vesicle initiation of leukemia phenotype in normal adult bone marrow	Peter Quesenberry, MD Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University Providence, RI	Matthew Quesenberry, MD Lifespan Cancer Institute Providence, RI
Oluwaseun "Seun" Orikogbo University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Pittsburgh, PA	Role of hemopexin in acute kidney injury of sickle cell disease during hemolytic crisis	Solomon Ofori-Acquah, PhD Vascular Medicine Institute Pittsburgh, PA	Laura De Castro, MD, MHSc Vascular Medicine Institute Pittsburgh, PA
Derrick Ridley Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, GA	Elucidating the role of comorbidity in patients with mantle cell lymphoma	Jonathon Cohen, MD, MS Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, GA	Leon Bernal-Mizrachi, MD Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, GA
Anjelica Saulsberry University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine Memphis, TN	Transition readiness and cognition as predictors of optimal transition to adult care in patients with sickle cell disease	Jane Hankins, MD, MS St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Memphis, TN	Maria del Pilar Aguinaga, PhD, DLM (ASCP) Meharry Medical College Nashville, TN
Kekoa Taparra, PhD Mayo Clinic School of Medicine Rochester, MN	Bleomycin use in the treatment of hodgkin lymphoma: changes over the years	Stephen Ansell, MD, PhD Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN	Rahma Warsame, MD Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN
Ammanuel Taye Howard University College of Medicine Washington, D.C.	Orosomucoid as a biomarker for chronic kidney disease associated with sickle cell disease	Sergei Nekhai, PhD Howard University College of Medicine Washington, D.C.	Deepika Darbari, MD Children's National Health System Washington, D.C.
Ashley Thrower University of North Carolina School of Medicine Chapel Hill, NC	The effect of opioid analgesics on albuminuria in adult patients with sickle cell anemia	Kenneth Ataga, MBBS, MD UNC Division of Hematology/Oncology Chapel Hill, NC	Georgette Dent, MD UNC School of Medicine Chapel Hill, NC
Vanessa Vides Pennsylvania State College of Medicine Hershey, PA	Correlative studies on a clinical trial of Anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T cells in combination with ibrutinib for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia	Saar Gill, MD, PhD Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA	Stephen P. Hunger, MD Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (www.hematology.org) is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists dedicated to furthering the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting the blood. For 60 years, the Society has led the development of hematology as a discipline by promoting research, patient care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology. ASH publishes Blood (www.bloodjournal.org), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field, which is available weekly in print and online. In 2016, ASH launched Blood Advances (www.bloodadvances.org), an online, peer-reviewed open-access journal.

CONTACT:
Sara Khalaf, American Society of Hematology
skhalaf@hematology.org; 202-552-4925