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

Jun 13

2017

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

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