2020 ASH Meeting on Lymphoma Biology Speakers
Learn more about the experts who will be participating in the 2020 ASH Meeting on Lymphoma Biology.
Ralf Küppers, PhD
Ralf Küppers studied biology at the University of Cologne. He performed his PhD studies in human immunology also in Cologne, in the group of Prof. Klaus Rajewsky. After finishing his PhD in 1995, he set up his own research group. In 2000/2001, he stayed for a 6-months sabbatical at the Columbia University in New York with Dr. Riccardo Dalla-Favera. Since 2004 he is full professor of Molecular Genetics at the Institute of Cell Biology (Cancer Research), Medical Faculty, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
Dr. Küppers’s research is focussed on the pathogenesis of human B-cell lymphomas, in particular Hodgkin lymphoma and CLL, the differentiation and function of normal mature B cells in humans, and the role of viruses in B cell lymphomagenesis.
Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD
Riccardo Dalla-Favera is best known for his studies on the genetic alterations involved in the pathogenesis of human cancer, in particular, human B cell lymphoma. Dr. Dalla-Favera and his research team have contributed significantly to the understanding of normal B cell function, directly impacting the diagnostics and therapeutic targeting of B cell malignancies including Burkitt lymphoma, diffuse large B cell lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
He co-discovered the MYC oncogene involvement in chromosomal translocations associated with Burkitt lymphoma. Subsequently, his laboratory identified several mutated genes involved in lymphomagenesis, including BCL6, a key transcription factor in B cell development, and an important oncogene in B cell lymphoma. More recently, using genome-wide gene sequencing and gene expression analysis, the Dalla-Favera laboratory elucidated a more complete landscape of the genome of these malignancies. They have identified the normal function, as well as the contribution to B-cell transformation of recurrently altered genes, by using in vitro studies and conditional mouse models reproducing the lesions in B cells.
Dr. Dalla-Favera’s work is widely recognized with numerous national and international prizes and awards, including two NIH MERIT Awards, the 2006 William Dameshek Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Hematology from the American Society of Hematology, the 2012 Alfred Knudson Award from the National Cancer Institute, and in 2014, the OncLive Giants of Cancer Care Award. Dr. Dalla-Favera is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.
Bertrand Nadel, PhD
Dr. Nadel’s research focuses on the (epi)genetic mechanisms of oncogenesis in human lymphoma/leukemia and aims to identify pertinent biomarkers and innovative therapeutic approaches. He has developed a translational research program in strong partnership with clinics and companies.
In 2017, he was appointed director of the CALYM (Carnot Institute on Lymphoma), a nation-wide academic consortium, regrouping 18 French labs expert on lymphoma. CALYM aims to foster innovation, research, and development among academia and industry; the CALYM consortium has gained international recognition for its ability to drive research towards clinical trials. From 2015-2017, he was Director of the Cancéropôle PACA, one of the seven regional federative structures appointed by the French National Cancer Institute, Dr. Nadel was in charge of coordinating forces, actions, and joint initiatives on cancer, through federating a community of 12 research institutes, hospitals, cancer research centers, and local structures of excellence of the French south-east region.
Klaus Rajewsky, MD
Dr. Rajewsky and collaborators developed a general method of targeted mutagenesis in mouse embryonic stem cells by introducing bacteriophage- and yeast-derived recombination systems, which opened the way for conditional gene targeting. Using this and other methods in their immunological work, they developed, together with N. A. Mitchison and N. K. Jerne, the antigen-bridge model of T-B cell cooperation, identified germinal centers as the sites of antibody somatic hypermutation, the B cell antigen receptor as a survival determinant of B cells, and the germinal center as a major site of human B cell lymphomagenesis, including Hodgkin lymphoma. Over the last years the work of his group has focused on mechanisms of microRNA control, targeted mutagenesis and gene repair in hematopoietic cells, differentiation and subset determination in B lymphocytes, and the development of mouse models of human B cell lymphomas.
Dr. Rajewsky obtained his medical degree at the University of Frankfurt. After postdoctoral work at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, he built an immunology department at the Institute for Genetics, University of Cologne, where he stayed for 38 years, was the founding Program Coordinator of the EMBL Mouse Biology Program at Monterotondo near Rome, worked for 10 years at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and is since 2012 Senior Group Leader at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany. He won numerous scientific awards and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dinis Calado, PhD
Dr. Dinis Calado did his PhD at the Gulbenkian Institute (Oeiras, Portugal) where he investigated the regulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines in the immune system. For his postdoctoral work, Dr. Calado joined Harvard Medical School and later the Max Debrueck Center where he studied B cell receptor signalling and mechanisms of lymphomagenesis through the generation of mouse models systems of diffuse large B cell and Burkitt lymphoma. He also identified in vivo subpopulations of germinal center B cells with high expression of the proto-oncogene MYC that may be at a particularly high risk for malignant transformation. At the Francis Crick Institute, Dr. Calado investigates germinal center B cell regulation and differentiation in autoimmunity and response to infection to elucidate mechanisms of malignant transformation and of the interplay between lymphoma cells and their microenvironment.
Jagan R. Muppidi, MD, PhD
Dr. Muppidi received his undergraduate, MD, and PhD degrees from the University of Kansas. He performed his graduate research in the lab of Dr. Richard Siegel at the NIH. Following medical school, he did residency in internal medicine at Weill Cornell Medical Center and then pursued fellowship training in medical oncology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). While at UCSF, he did his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Jason Cyster where he described a tumor suppressive pathway in germinal center B cells involving the small G-protein Ga13. Dr. Muppidi was appointed as an Earl Stadtman Investigator in the Lymphoid Malignancies Branch of the NCI in 2016. The focus of Dr. Muppidi’s laboratory is to discover factors promoting the development of germinal center-derived malignancies. Specifically, he is interested in defining the microenvironmental factors within mucosal LNs that promote the development of malignancy.
Dan A. Landau, MD
Dan Landau, MD, PhD, is physician-scientist who integrates data science innovation with genomic technology development to unravel the basic principles of tumor evolution as a key to cancer cure. He serves as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, as well as a Core Member of the NYGC. His work received numerous awards including the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Award, SU2C Innovative Research Award, and NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.
Ari Melnick, MD
Ari M. Melnick, MD, is Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. He is chair of the Hematologic Malignancies Program of the Weill Cornell Cancer Center and Director of the Sackler Center for Biomedical and Physical Sciences at Weill Cornell.
Dr. Melnick’s research is focused on discovering transcriptional and epigenomic mechanisms that drive lymphoid and myeloid neoplasms and harnessing these mechanisms for development of novel drugs and therapeutic regimens for cancer patients. This has led him to early on apply methodologies such as HiC, etc to explore how sets of genes become coordinated during the immune response and disrupted in cancer. Dr. Melnick uses two general approaches to study these mechanisms. On the one hand, his group performs focused biochemical and biological mechanistic research on specific transcriptional and epigenetic modifiers that play key roles in normal and malignant tissues. He has used this work to design novel kinds of therapeutic agents including the first rationally designed transcription factor inhibitor as well as to translate to the clinic specific targeted therapies in a more precise manner. In the second approach, Dr. Melnick uses the tools of systems biology and high throughout genomics to explore how the epigenome is perturbed in human patients with disease.
Hans-Guido Wendel, MD
H. Guido Wendel is a Member/Professor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His research explores the molecular pathogenesis of follicular lymphoma. For example, his group reported the first model of follicular lymphoma that accurately captures the genetics and pathology of the human disease. Since then, he has systematically explored the biological functions of the most frequent genetic lesions in lymphoma. This work has touched on epigenetic factors (KMT2D/MLL2, CREBBP/Ep300, EZH2), cell metabolism (SHMT2, Sestrin), cell cycle control (CDK4, Rb, p16), and immune receptor biology (TNFRSF14/HVEM, BTLA, EphA7). He has also developed innovative and experimental therapeutics, e.g. “CAR-T micro-pharmacies” that continuously and locally produce tumor suppressive peptides.
A specific interest of the Wendel lab is aberrant protein production and function in lymphoma and beyond. The group first showed the oncogenic activity of the eIF4E translation factor and showed that the eIF4E kinase MNK1/2 is a drug target and as a result MNK inhibitors are now in clinical trials in lymphoma. He further showed that the RNA helicase eIF4A is needed for the translation of G-quadruplex mRNAs, including MYC, BCL2 and other oncoproteins in lymphoma. This is the molecular basis of the anti-cancer activity of rocaglamides that inhibit eIF4A and that are now approved to enter clinical testing. Most recently, he reported that protein glycation (glucose adducts to lysine) can regulate the activity of important transcription factors.
Jude Fitzgibbon, PhD
Professor Fitzgibbon’s research interests is on understanding and translating information on the molecular pathogenesis of haematological malignancies. He received his BA in Genetics at Trinity College Dublin before completing his PhD studies at University College London. He is currently Chair in Personalised Cancer Medicine, at the Barts Cancer Institute, part of Queen Mary University of London and Centre Lead for Genomics and Computational Biology. He is a lead member of the Precision Medicine in Aggressive Lymphoma (PMAL) consortium, is Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute Science lymphoma sub-group in the UK, and holds programmatic/accelerator funding from both Cancer Research UK and Bloodwise charities, with primary interests in follicular lymphoma and acute myeloid leukemia.
Christian Steidl, MD
Dr. Steidl is the Research Director of the Centre for Lymphoid Cancer, Associate Vice President Research at BC Cancer, and Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He has expertise in clinical malignant hematology, molecular pathology, genomics, and lymphoma biology. Dr Steidl’s translational research group focuses on the pathogenesis of B cell lymphomas, tumor microenvironment biology, and applied genomics. He is most known for his discovery and characterization of novel gene mutations in non-Hodgkin lymphomas and microenvironment-related biomarkers in Hodgkin lymphoma. Dr Steidl is lead investigator of a team grant on treatment failure in lymphoid cancers funded by the Terry Fox Research Institute and project leader of a Genome Canada Large-Scale Applied Research Project to advance personalized treatments of lymphoid cancer patients.
Dr. Steidl is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, past chair of the American Society of Hematology Scientific Committee on Lymphoid Neoplasia and Member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee. He was inducted as a member of the Royal Society of Canada, College for New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2017, and won an Allen Distinguished Investigator award in 2018.
Margot Thome-Miazza, PhD
Margot Thome, PhD, studied Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and the University of Arizona, and carried out her PhD work in the laboratory of Oreste Acuto at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. After her postdoctoral training with Jürg Tschopp, she set up her research group in 2004 at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. She was appointed Associate Professor in 2009 and Full Professor in 2017. Since 2015 she is the Codirector of the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Lausanne.
Dr. Thome’s research has identified fundamental molecular mechanisms controlling lymphocyte biology, including the role of CBM signaling components in lymphocyte activation and the role of anti-apoptotic FLIP proteins in lymphocyte survival. The present work of the Thome laboratory focuses on the study of signaling pathways that control lymphocyte activation and the development of lymphomas. 𠊋y uncovering new molecular players and enzymatic activities relevant to these pathways, the Thome group aims at identifying possible targets for therapeutic immuno-modulation and treatment of lymphomas.
Karin Tarte, PhD
Dr. Karin Tarte has a background in immunology and hemato-oncology with a continuous focus on B-cell malignancies. Her research is dedicated to the understanding of normal and malignant tumor niches, with a specific interest for the mechanisms of the co-evolution of tumor clones and their supportive microenvironment. She heads a research unit of about 30 people, gathering clinicians and biologists, dedicated to basic and translational research in the field of lymphoma.
She is involved in several research and clinical programs dealing with the understanding of the role of tumor microenvironment and how it could be a target for new therapeutic strategies and/or provide predictive and prognostic biomarkers. As a PI and co-investigator of several programs from the French NCI and French National Research Agency, she had the opportunity to develop fruitful collaborations with national and international academic and industrial partners leading to publications of highly cited papers and contributing to the design of new clinical trials sponsored by the Lymphoma Study Association.
Martina Seiffert, PhD
Dr. Martina Seiffert is a group leader at the German Cancer Research Center, Division of Molecular Genetics, in Heidelberg, Germany. Her research group is interested in pathomechanisms of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma with a focus on chronic lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL) and on tumor microenvironment-related questions. Her lab has established various coculture models of primary tumor samples, as well as mouse models, that are used for studying disease biology as well as for pre-clinical testing of drugs. Dr. Seiffert has contributed to our understanding of the inflammatory milieu as a driver of CLL as well as to immune escape mechanisms including myeloid-derived suppressor cells and T-cell exhaustion in this disease.
After studying biology at the University of Constance, Germany, and the University of Oregon, Dr. Seiffert obtained her PhD in 1998 from the University of Tübingen, investigating the bone marrow microenvironment in hematopoietic malignancies. As postdoctoral fellow, she continued her research at the University of Tübingen and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Ash A. Alizadeh, MD, PhD
Dr. Ash Alizadeh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His research lies at the intersection of computational biology, cancer genetics, and systems biology. As a practicing oncologist and physician scientist, he works on multiple aspects of oncology biomarker development. Dr. Alizadeh leads the Cancer Genomics program at Stanford Cancer Institute, and his group has a history of research and accomplishments in cancer genomics, beginning with the original development of microarray gene expression profiling for cancer classification starting with lymphomas, and advancing to multiple tumor types.
Two major areas of interest of his group have been genomic biomarkers for noninvasive detection of cancers and for the recognition of tumors by the immune system. His group has led the development of several genomic techniques, including for detection of circulating tumor DNA (CAPP-Seq) and for deconvolution of tumor microenvironments (CIBERSORT). Important features of these widely used techniques include their high accuracy and their applicability to a broad spectrum of cancers, tissues, and cell types. Dr. Alizadeh’s recent work demonstrates the clinical utility of ctDNA-based liquid biopsies for various cancers including lymphomas and lung cancers.
Dr. Alizadeh is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, is a recipient of awards from the American Society of Hematology, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, American Red Cross, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Research Foundation, and V-Foundation, and he serves as a current member of the Cancer Genetics Study Section of the NIH.
Louis Staudt, MD, PhD
Dr. Staudt graduated from Harvard College and earned his MD and PhD at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Following internal medicine training, he joined Nobel Laureate David Baltimore's laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow. His laboratory in the National Cancer Institute focuses on the molecular basis for human lymphoid malignancies and the development of targeted therapies for these cancers. Dr. Staudt is Chief of the Lymphoid Malignancies Branch and Director of the NCI Center for Cancer Genomics, which directs large-scale programs studying genomic aberrations and function in cancer. His numerous awards include election to the National Academy of Sciences.
Anas Younes, MD
Dr. Anas Younes is a physician-scientist and medical oncologist with more than 25 years of experience caring for people with lymphoma at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). He served as the Chief of the Lymphoma Service at MSKCC from 2013 to 2019. He led efforts to develop the first targeted drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma, brentuximab vedotin, and, most recently, the first immune checkpoint inhibitor approved for lymphoma, nivolumab.
He is the principal investigator of a National Cancer Institute–funded Specialized Program of Research Excellence in lymphoma, focusing on developing novel treatment strategies for patients with lymphoma. He is also leading a Specialized Center of Research collaborative grant funded by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society focusing on the development of immune therapy for lymphoma and CAR T cell therapy for lymphoma.
Margaret A. Shipp, MD
Margaret A. Shipp, MD, is Chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), Director of the Lymphoma Research Center at DFCI, and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her clinical and laboratory research focuses on the clinical and molecular heterogeneity of the large B-cell lymphomas (LBCLs) and Hodgkin lymphomas. Dr. Shipp coordinated the development of the International Prognostic Index which is used worldwide to individualize treatment approaches to LBCLs and many other lymphoid malignancies. More recently, she has led efforts to define molecular signatures of LBCLs and Hodgkin lymphomas, identify biologically distinct subsets of these diseases, and characterize associated rational treatment targets including modulators of the host anti-tumor immune response.
Dr. Shipp received her Doctor of Medicine from Washington University School of Medicine and completed an internal medicine internship and residency at Barnes Hospital/Washington University. Thereafter, she completed a fellowship in Medical Oncology at DFCI and joined the faculty.
Stephen M. Ansell, MD, PhD
Dr. Stephen Ansell is a consultant in the Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Dr. Ansell currently serves as Chair of the Mayo Clinic Lymphoma Disease-Oriented Group. He joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in 1999 and holds the academic rank of professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine.
Dr. Ansell’s research focuses on investigating the phenotype and activity of intratumoral T cells and developing strategies to modulate the T-cell infiltration in B-cell lymphoma. Further areas of research interest include the development of biologic therapies for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia. The current strategies being developed include the use of novel antibodies and cytokines, the use of targeted therapies, and the development of strategies to inhibit signaling through receptors that promote the survival of malignant B cells. The utility of these strategies is being tested in early-phase clinical trials.
Dr. Ansell earned his MB, ChB, and PhD degrees at University of Pretoria, where he also completed an internship in internal medicine and surgery, a residency in internal medicine, and a fellowship in medical oncology. He later came to the United States and completed a residency in internal medicine and then a fellowship in hematology/oncology at Mayo Clinic. In recognition of his work, Dr. Ansell has received awards and honors, including the New Investigator Award, the Teacher of the Year Award in the Hematology Fellowship Program, and the Department of Medicine Research Award for Landmark Contributions to the Literature.
Catherine M. Bollard, MD
Dr. Catherine Bollard received her medical degree at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She worked in New Zealand and London and before moving to Houston in 2000 where she was Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine. In August 2013, she moved to Washington, DC, where she is currently the Bosworth Chair for Cancer Biology, Director of the Center for Cancer and Immunology Research, and Director of the Program for Cell Enhancement and Technologies for Immunotherapy at Children’s National Health System. 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 viral diseases and hematologic malignancies.
Dr. Bollard has been an Associate Editor for Blood since 2014. She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), is the immediate Past President of the International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT), and has chaired the non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Committee of the Children’s Oncology Group since 2012. She was on the Board of Directors of the Foundation in for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) and was a member of the Cellular, Tissues, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2019 she became a member of the Frederick National Laboratory Advisory Committee (FNLAC) for the NIH and an ad hoc member of the Pediatric Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) for the FDA.
Ranjana Advani, MD
Dr. Ranjana Advani is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University specializing in the field of lymphoma. She holds an endowed chair (Saul Rosenberg Professor) and oversees all aspects of treatment of the vast majority of adult lymphoma patients.
Her primary research interests include improving care for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma patients by optimizing front line regimens, developing novel agents and targeted therapy for refractory and recurrent disease, advancing correlative studies involving biomarkers, and addressing long-term outcomes. She leads multi-institutional efforts as a national study principal investigator (PI) or Co-PI on several targeted therapies, translational, and imaging studies. She is a member of the lymphoma core committee for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and the NCCN guidelines committee for non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and Hodgkin Lymphoma (vice chair) and has completed a term serving as the co-chair of the National Cancer Institute Lymphoma Steering Committee. Dr. Advani has published extensively in the peer reviewed literature and is on the editorial board of Blood and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Ronald Levy, MD
Dr. Levy is the Robert K. Summy and Helen K. Summy Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lymphoma Program at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also the Associate Director of Translational Science for the Stanford Cancer Institute. For more than 25 years, his research has focused on monoclonal antibodies and the study of malignant lymphoma, currently using the tools of immunology and molecular biology to develop a better understanding of the initiation and progression of the malignant process. He was the first to successfully treat cancer with a monoclonal antibody and went on to help develop rituximab for the treatment of lymphomas. Dr. Levy is using lymphocyte receptors as targets for new therapies for lymphoma, and he is currently conducting clinical trials of in situ therapeutic vaccination. Dr. Levy is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Laura Pasqualucci, MD
Dr. Laura Pasqualucci is a Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology at the Institute for Cancer Genetics, Columbia University. She received her MD degree from the University of Perugia Medical School, where she completed training in hematology before moving to the United States for a post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Riccardo Dalla-Favera at Columbia University. Dr. Pasqualucci was then promoted to faculty positions in 2001. Dr. Pasqualucci’s research over the last 20 years has focused on the identification and functional characterization of genetic alterations that are associated with mature B cell lymphomas, including their in vivo modeling, with the ultimate goal of identifying better biomarkers and more effective treatment options for these diseases.
Dr. Pasqualucci’s work has provided fundamental contributions to the current understanding of the most common lymphoid malignancies by discovering multiple lymphoma-driving genetic lesions and by demonstrating their role in the malignant transformation process. More recently, her research group has been focusing on investigating the mechanisms by which highly recurrent inactivating mutations of histone/chromatin modifiers, including the methyltransferase KMT2D and the acetyltransferases CREBBP/EP300, perturb the epigenetic landscape of germinal center (GC) B cells to facilitate their clonal expansion. Dr. Pasqualucci’s studies established a role for these genes as bona fide tumor suppressors in GC-derived lymphoma, which are disrupted as early events during the history of tumor clonal evolution. This information is currently being exploited for the development of targeted therapeutic approaches in these diseases
Sandrine Roulland, PhD
Sandrine Roulland, PharmD, PhD, is a tenured scientist at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). She received a PharmD and a PhD degree in Molecular epidemiology and Public Health from the University of Caen (Normandy) before moving to the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille Luminy (CIML) for a post-doctoral fellowship to work on B cell lymphomagenesis. She was promoted to an INSERM faculty position in 2009. Dr. Roulland currently directs research at the frontier of cancer prevention, molecular basis and treatment of germinal center (GC)-derived B-cell lymphomas.
Over the last 15 years, Dr. Roulland’s research has focused on the molecular and immune determinants governing follicular lymphoma (FL) progression both in humans and in in vivo mouse models. Her work has contributed to identify lymphoma precursor cells in ‘healthy individuals’ years before FL diagnosis and to understand the genetics of premalignant states in FL. Her lab also established a key role of the chronic immune stimulation and specifically the subversion of the GC/Memory B cell dynamics during FL clonal evolution. Her current research is focused on characterizing this early common precursor cell (CPC) population as a cell reservoir seeding relapses and resistance to therapy during FL clinical course and on developing new cellular and animal models recapitulating CPC genesis and the interplay with the microenvironment to provide biologic-driven therapeutic rationale to directly target this population.
Reiner Siebert, PhD
Dr. Reiner Siebert is Professor of Human Genetics and Director of the Institute of Human Genetics at Ulm University and Ulm University Medical Center in Ulm (Germany). Dr. Siebert is a specialised Human Geneticist in charge of the Clinical and Laboratory Genetics Services at Ulm University Medical Center which include reference diagnostic laboratories for cancer genetics. His predominately translational research focusses on the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of human diseases, particularly cancer, inborn developmental disorders and metabolic diseases. His special interest is in the germline and somatic (epi)genetics of malignant lymphomas and pediatric cancer. Besides disease- and patient-oriented research, his group has participated in and is still contributing to huge international efforts in the field of human genetics, including the Human Genome Project, the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC).
Dr. Siebert has authored and co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed research publications. He is the Section Editor for Lymphoma of the journal “Leukemia” and Editor-in-Chief of the medical genetics journal of the German Society of Human Genetics. Among others, he is currently chairman of the working group “Biological Research” of the German Lymphoma Alliance.
Elias Campo, MD, PhD
Dr. Campo received his MD and PhD from the University of Barcelona. He trained in Pathology at Hospital of Bellvitge and was a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD. He is currently Professor of Pathology at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, University of Barcelona.
His research focuses on the pathological characterization of lymphoid neoplasms and the understanding of the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of these tumors. The main goal is to translate into the clinical practice the knowledge that may improve the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic intervention in these patients. In the last years, his work has concentrated in elucidating the genomic/epigenomic alterations in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma, and other aggressive lymphomas.
Davide Rossi, MD, PhD
Professor Davide Rossi obtained the specialization in internal medicine and the PhD in Clinical and Experimental Medicine at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara. Dr. Rossi served as Professor of Hematology and member of the Faculty of the School of Medicine of the University of Eastern Piedmont until 2015. In 2015, he moved to Switzerland where he is Deputy Head of the Division of Hematology at the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, the head of the Experimental Hematology research program at the Institute of Oncology Research, and the co-chair of the Clinical Lymphoid Tumors Investigation Program.
The research topic of the Laboratory of Experimental Hematology is the molecular pathogenesis of mature B-cell tumors and translation of biological information into markers for disease diagnosis, prognostication and treatment. In this field, original and ground-breaking contributions of Dr. Rossi include: i) identification of NOTCH1, SF3B1, and BIRC3 mutations in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and characterization of their clinical role; ii) definition of the molecular bases of high risk CLL, including refractory and transformed disease; iii) definition of the genetic profile of very low risk CLL patients, including highly stable/non-progressing patients and patients who gain durable remission after chemoimmunotherapy; iv) first description of the clinical relevance of small TP53 mutated subclones in CLL; v) seminal characterization of the splenic and nodal marginal zone lymphoma genome, including the identification of NOTCH2, PTPRD, and non-canonical NF-κB gene mutations in marginal zone lymphomas; and vi) validation of plasma cell free DNA as a tool to inform on tumor genetics in lymphomas.
Catherine J. Wu, MD
Dr. Catherine Wu is a Professor of Medicine and Chief, Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). She received her MD from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed her clinical training in internal medicine and hematology-oncology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and DFCI, where she joined the staff in 2000.
She has initiated an integrated program of research and clinical activities that focuses on dissecting the underlying mechanisms of pathobiology of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) as a means to more rationally generate effective therapies for this common adult leukemia. Through large-scale genome analysis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, her laboratory has discovered key mutated genes and pathways involved in CLL, systematically analyzed tumor genotype – phenotype relationships and mechanistically dissected the impact of novel CLL driver genes. Ongoing studies in her laboratory focus on (i) systematically analyzing tumor genotype – phenotype relationships, understanding CLL tumor heterogeneity and clonal evolution, and (2) and mechanistically dissecting the impact of novel CLL driver genes.
Iñaki Martin-Subero, PhD
Dr. Martin-Subero graduated from the University of Navarra (Spain) with a degree in Biochemistry. In 2001, he completed a PhD with honours as a joined effort between the University of Navarra and the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (Germany). He continued his postdoctoral training at the Christian-Albrechts University and in 2005 he became faculty member. Upon returning to Spain in 2009, he started to coordinate a research group on epigenomics at the University of Barcelona. In 2016, he was appointed leader of the Biomedical Epigenomics group at the IDIBAPS research institute in Barcelona, and in 2018 he was awarded with an ICREA Research Professorship.
Dr. Martin-Subero's research is focused on the application of advanced sequencing and computational technologies to characterize epigenomic markers in normal and neoplastic lymphoid cells. His group has reported the first epigenomes during normal B cell differentiation as well as in a variety of B-cell neoplasms, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. His studies have revealed that the roles of DNA methylation in cancer can be multiple and are dependent on the genomic context and that DNA methylation represents a powerful biomarker to estimate clinical behaviour. His current efforts are focused on understanding gene deregulation in lymphoid tumours through the integration of DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin accessibility and 3D chromatin structure, including studies at the single cell level.
Wing “John” C. Chan, MD
Board-certified in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, and hematology, Dr. Chan is a hematopathologist who came to City of Hope's Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha where he was co-director for its Center for Lymphoma and Leukemia Research, and an endowed professor in the Department of Pathology and Microbiology. At City of Hope, he is Co-leader, Hematology Malignancies Program and Dr. Norman & Melinda Payson Professor in Hematologic Cancers.
Dr. Chan is an internationally respected molecular pathologist, who has made numerous significant contributions to the field of pathology and malignant hematology. He has been an associate editor of the American Journal of Pathology, where he currently serves on the editorial board. Dr. Chan has received numerous research grants for his work, including multiple grants from the NIH/NCI to explore the molecular classification of lymphoma and to construct molecular signatures to improve diagnosis and outcome prediction in lymphoma.
Kojo S. J. Elenitoba-Johnson, MD
Dr. Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson is the Peter C. Nowell, MD, Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania and Founding Director of Penn Medicine’s Center for Personalized Diagnostics. Dr. Elenitoba-Johnson is a hematopathologist and molecular pathologist who leverages high dimensional approaches, such as integrative genomics and mass spectrometry-driven proteomics, to interrogate molecular processes underlying the pathogenesis of lymphoid malignancies.
He earned his medical degree from the College of Medicine, University of Lagos. He completed his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the Brown University School of Medicine, where he served as chief resident. He then moved on to the National Cancer Institute to complete a fellowship in hematopathology, as well as the Leadership Development for Physicians in Academic Health Centers program at the Harvard School of Public Health.
His research focuses on the pathogenesis of human malignant lymphomas, biomarker discovery by genomic and proteomic profiling, and cancer. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (2011) and is the recipient of the Outstanding Investigator Award given by the American Society for Investigative Pathology (2012). Dr. Elenitoba-Johnson is a member for the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He is also an associate editor for the Journal of Hematopathology.
Teresa Palomero, PhD
Dr. Palomero is a researcher in the field of leukemia and lymphoma genomics at Columbia University who focuses on the elucidation of the genetic and molecular bases of T-cell leukemia and lymphoma, with special interest in the development of targeted therapies for the treatment of these aggressive hematologic tumors.
Dr. Palomero obtained her PhD on Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo (Spain) working on the characterization of intracellular signaling pathways activated by the TRH receptor. She then moved to Boston where she did her postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Look, working on the regulation of transcription factor oncogenes in T-ALL. She joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2005 where she worked initially on T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), developing a cutting edge research program implementing the integrative use of gene expression profiling, ChIP-on-chip and ChIP-seq analysis for the dissection of the oncogenic programs responsible for the transformation of T-cell progenitors in T-ALL.
Since 2015 she has established an independent program in the field of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) supported by grant funding from the NIH and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Her research focuses on molecular analyses of the mechanisms used by driver alterations in PTCL and on the generation of preclinical models for dissecting lymphoma development, analyzing the interaction of the tumor and microenvironment components and identifying novel targeted therapies for PTCL. Her group has already established groundbreaking models in the field of PTCL.
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