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American Society of Hematology Selects 22 Underrepresented Medical Students for Minority Medical Student Award Program

(WASHINGTON, June 13, 2017) – The American Society of Hematology (ASH) today announced the names of 22 medical students selected to take part in the 2017 Minority Medical Student Award Program (MMSAP). This program encourages eligible underrepresented minority medical students to pursue careers in hematology by supporting them as they implement 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 59th ASH Annual Meeting in December, where they will present their research findings during a special session. In addition, each student is paired with two ASH mentors: an MMSAP research mentor who will oversee the research project and a career-development mentor who will guide the participant throughout his or her MMSAP experience. They will also receive complimentary subscriptions to Blood, a journal of ASH, as well as to The Hematologist, the Society's newsletter, during their medical school and residency years.

For the first time, ASH is offering expanded opportunities to accommodate the schedules of medical students interested in the program. Medical students can either participate in a summer-long program or a flexible option (MMSAP Flex), which allows them to spread out the research experience during one year. This change represents an increased commitment from ASH to support the hematology careers of underrepresented minorities.

“ASH places high importance on attracting and retaining talented minorities in hematology,” said ASH President Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “The ASH Minority Medical Student Award allows the Society to form a relationship with medical students before they commit to a field of study. By giving them the support to pursue an exciting research opportunity early on in their careers, we hope these students will see a path forward for themselves in hematology and with ASH.”

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 2017 MMSAP summer participants and their research topics include:

Recipient Project Title Research Mentor Career-Development Mentor
Alexandra Boye-Doe
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Cleveland, OH
Red cell adhesion in adult patients with sickle cell disease, at baseline and with pain, measured on a microfluidic device Jane Little, MD
University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center
Cleveland, OH
Benjamin K. Tomlinson, MD
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Cleveland, OH
Jeffrey Edwards
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, CA
Targeted inhibition of CREB for the treatment of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia Kathleen Sakamoto, MD, PhD
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford, CA
Arturo Molina, MD
Sutro Biopharma
South San Francisco, CA
Moses Evbuomwan
Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine
Rochester, MI
Evaluating new VLA-4 inhibitors with gro-ßt to mobilize hematopoietic stem cells/progenitors cells John DiPersio, MD PhD
Washington University School of Medicine
St. Louis, MO
Ishmael Jaiyesimi, DO, MS
Beaumont Cancer Center
Royal Oak, MI

Lilian Iglesias
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Cleveland, OH

Long-term outcomes of chronic myeloid leukemia patients in the United States – Evolving risk of second cancers and survival trends

Mikkael Sekeres, MD, MS
Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute
Cleveland, OH

Connie Piccone, MD
Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital
Cleveland, OH

Marjorie Johnson
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Augusta, GA

Development of the novel prodrug conjugate of butyrate and delta-aminolevunate for treatment of sickle cell disease Betty Pace, MD
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Augusta, GA
Jeremy Pantin, MD, MBBS
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Augusta, GA

Lanair Lett
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Investigating health disparities in infection among pediatric patients with acute leukemia

Richard Aplenc, MD, MSCE, PhD
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Kim Smith-Whitley, MD
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA

Christina Marcelus
State University of New York Upstate Medical University
Syracuse, NY

Identifying mechanisms of resistance to spliceosomal inhibitors for spliceosomal mutant leukemias Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY
Melody Smith, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY

Lillian Nwanah
University Of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago, IL

DREAM-regulated PI3K activity in platelet function and thrombosis Jaehyung Cho, PhD
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL
Damiano Rondelli, MD
University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System
Chicago, IL
Wilton Robinson, Jr.
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Washington, D.C.
Predictors of treatment outcomes for relapsed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients Jonathon Cohen, MD, MS
Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University
Atlanta, GA
David Bodine, PhD
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD
Cristian Taborda
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
New York, NY
Role of microbiome diversity in shaping the graft-versus-host immune response after allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation Ran Reshef, MD, MSc
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
New York, NY
Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
New York, NY
Roberto Tapia
Rush Medical College
Chicago, IL

Correlative studies to examine the effects of Alisertib therapy in patients with myelofibrosis

 
John D. Crispino, PhD
Northwestern University
Chicago, IL
Michael R. Bishop, MD
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
Allison Taylor
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Washington, D.C.
Analyzing the antigen expression profile on multiple myeloma cells for CAR T-cell therapy

Timothy Graubert, MD
Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center
Boston, MA

Courtney Fitzhugh, MD
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD

Newly accepted participants to the 2017 MMSAP Flex and their research topics include:

Recipient Project Title  Research Mentor  Career-Development Mentor 

David Foreman
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Augusta, GA

miR-15a mediated MYB gene silencing: a novel approach to induce fetal hemoglobin Betty Pace, MD
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Augusta, GA
Abdullah Kutlar, MD
Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University
Augusta, GA

Orly Leiva
Boston University School of Medicine Boston, MA

Mechanisms of control of lysyl oxidase expression in JAK2-mutated myelofibrotic cells Katya Ravid, DSc, PhD
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, MA

Gabriela S. Hobbs, MD
Massachusetts General Hospital

Boston, MA

Christopher Miller
Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science
Chicago, IL

Testing if TET3 is a direct HIF target during erythropoiesis Lucy Godley, MD, PhD
The University of Chicago Medicine 
Chicago, IL

Olatoyosi Odenike, MD
The University of Chicago Medicine
Chicago, IL

Anjelica Saulsberry
University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine
Memphis, TN
Disease knowledge and self-management skills among adolescents 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
Jasmine Smith
University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville
Greenville, SC
Hematopoietic stem cell transplant and sickle cell disease: how to maximize use of this curative therapy Staci Arnold, MD, MBA, MPH
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta/Emory University
Atlanta, GA

Kenneth I. Ataga, MD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medicine
Chapel Hill, NC

Maria Torres
Mayo Clinic School of Medicine
Rochester, MN
Impact of hospitality houses on the quality of life and mood of hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients and caregivers

Gerardo Colón-Otero, MD
Mayo Clinic Florida
Jacksonville, FL

James Foran, MD
Mayo Clinic Florida
Jacksonville, FL

Returning MMSAP Recipients:
These medical students participated in last year’s MMSAP and are returning with new and/or continuing research project as participants in MMSAP Flex.

Recipient Project Title Research Mentor Career-Development Mentor
Austin Ikechi
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Columbus, OH
Patterns of disease relapse and progress after therapy in patients with multiple myeloma treated with daratumumab Don Benson, MD, PhD
The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center
Columbus, OH
Robert Baiocchi, MD, PhD
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
Ramanjot Kang
Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine
Dayton, OH
The development of autoimmune diseases in women with pregnancies affected by fetal-neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia James Bussel, MD
Weill Cornell Medicine
New York, NY

Mukund Dole, MD
Dayton Children's Hospital
Dayton, OH

Violeta Osegueda
University of California, Irvine School of Medicine
Irvine, CA
Assessing transfusion protocol for adult patients with suspected brain bleeds in a MTP-like protocol vs standard care Alyssa Ziman, MD
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA
Susan O'Brien, MD
UCI Cancer Center
Orange, CA
Monica Williams
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Columbus, OH
Characterizing PD-1 expression on NK cells in HLA-matched hematopoietic stem cell transplant: impact on clinical outcomes Michael Caligiuri, MD
The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and The James Cancer Hospital & Solove Research Center
Columbus, OH
Alison Walker, MD
The Ohio State University Medical Center
Columbus, OH

The American Society of Hematology (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 more than 50 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
[email protected]; 202-552-4925

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