2009-12-05

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the ASH Scholar Awards program. During this 25-year period, ASH has supported more than 200 fellows and junior faculty in both basic and clinical/translational research by providing partial salary or other support during the critical period required for completion of training and achievement of status as an independent investigator.  

Each day, ASH News Daily will feature current ASH Scholars. To find out more about the ASH Scholar Awards program, please visit www.hematology.org.

Natalia Beglova, PhD

Dr. Beglova graduated with an MSc from the Moscow Physical and Technical Institute in Moscow, Russia, and a PhD from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At McGill University, she was trained by Kalle Gehring, PhD, to use solution NMR spectroscopy for protein characterization. Beginning in 1999, she was a research fellow in the Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and she has conducted mentored research in the laboratory of Stephen Blacklow, MD, PhD, on the molecular mechanisms of protein function. In Dr. Blacklow’s library, Dr. Beglova learned x-ray crystallography and obtained extensive experience with both solution NMR and x-ray crystallography. She combined these methods of structural biology with biochemical studies to investigate the structure and function of the integrin and lipoprotein receptor families of the cell-surface receptors. Dr. Beglova joined Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, in 2006. She is assistant professor at the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis led by Drs. Bruce and Barbara Furie. Dr. Beglova’s research is focused on the structure and function of B2GPI complexes in antiphospholipid syndrome.

Xuefang Cao, PhD

Dr. Cao received his medical degree in China and initially worked as a resident in internal medicine for two years. To pursue a career in cancer-related research, he came to the United States for PhD training. As a PhD candidate, he was trained in W. Stratford May’s laboratory at the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center and studied the biochemical mechanisms and signal transduction pathways regulating apoptosis in the setting of hematologic malignancies. To gain experience in animal models of cancers, Dr. Cao moved to Washington University for postdoctoral work because of the strength of basic science in the Immunology and Oncology Programs. In Timothy Ley’s laboratory, he was trained in molecular biology, genetics, genomics, and transgenesis technologies, as well as molecular imaging and preclinical animal models of tumor development and clearance. Based on Dr. Cao’s experience and interest, he is currently studying the mechanisms of regulatory T-cell (Treg) activation and function in the setting of primary tumor formation and progression. Dr. Cao is fully committed to pursuing a career as an independent investigator in academic medicine. His long-term goal is to develop immune-based therapies that are safe and effective for patients with various cancers, including solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.

L.R. Devireddy, PhD

Dr. Devireddy obtained his DVM degree from A.P. Agricultural University in Hyderabad, India. He later attended the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to pursue a Master’s degree in Virology. Dr. Devireddy then enrolled in an interdisciplinary graduate program at the University of Nebraska Medical Center studying the latency of herpes viruses under the guidance of Dr. Clinton Jones. After graduation, he joined Prof. Michael Green’s laboratory at the University of Massachusetts to study the transcriptional regulation of apoptosis. His postdoctoral studies were funded by fellowships from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Howard Temin Award from the National Cancer Institute. In the fall of 2006, Dr. Devireddy accepted a faculty position in the Department of Pathology/Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University. At Case, he studies regulation of apoptosis by newly discovered lipocalin. Dr. Devireddy is also interested in analyzing the role of lipocalin in normal physiology and myeloproliferative disease.

Kira Gritsman, MD, PhD

Dr. Gritsman completed the MD/PhD program at New York University School of Medicine in 2001. Her PhD thesis in the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Schier focused on the roles of one-eyed pinhead (oep), an essential co-factor for the TGF-b family member Nodal, during mesoderm and endoderm development in the zebrafish embryo. Dr. Gritsman completed her residency in internal medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. She then received her hematology-oncology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Partners Health Care fellowship program and is now an instructor in the Hematologic Malignancies Division at Dana-Farber. For her postdoctoral research, she joined the laboratory of Dr. D. Gary Gilliland, where she began to focus on the PI3 kinase/AKT pathway, which is commonly dysregulated in leukemia. Dr. Gritsman generated a murine bone marrow transplant model of disease using a constitutively activated form of AKT to better understand the role of AKT pathway activation in the pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemia. She is now continuing her investigation of PI3 kinase signaling in hematopoiesis and leukemia in Dr. Thomas Roberts’ laboratory, utilizing mouse knockout models, in which individual catalytic isoforms of PI3 kinase are deleted in hematopoietic stem cells.

Jeanne Hendrickson, MD

Dr. Hendrickson is a pediatric hematologist and transfusion medicine physician. Her research is titled “Regulation of Red Blood Cell (RBC) Alloimmunization by Different Subtypes of Recipient Inflammation.” Dr. Hendrickson’s research utilizes a reductionist murine system in which RBCs express the model antigen hen egg lysozyme (HEL). She discovered that inflammation of the recipient prior to transfusion with the toll-like receptor agonist poly (I:C), a double-stranded RNA, significantly increases the rate and magnitude of response to the HEL RBC antigen. This increase in alloimmunization has now been observed in two different donor model systems (mHEL, with non-specific HEL expression, as well as HOD, with RBC-specific HEL expression). Mechanistic immunologic studies of response at the antigen-presenting cell level, CD4+ T-cell level, and B-cell level are ongoing, with a goal of identifying the key step(s) contributing to the increased alloimmunization observed with poly (I:C). Dr. Hendrickson has also observed that the spleen is essential to RBC alloimmunization in mice, with splenectomized animals failing to make anti-HEL after mHEL transfusion, despite pretreatment with poly (I:C) or adoptive transfer of antigen specific CD4+ T cells.

Elizabeth Hexner, MD

Dr. Hexner has a clinical and research interest in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) and experimental approaches to stem cell transplantation. She received her medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she also completed her training in internal medicine. Dr. Hexner went on to complete her clinical fellowship training at the University of Pennsylvania and performed post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Emerson, where she focused on two preclinical projects: the role of T cells in umbilical cord blood transplantation (also an ASH Clinical Research Training Institute project) and the activity of JAK2 inhibitors in primary cells from patients with MPNs. Both preclinical projects have moved into the clinical arena and are currently in phase I studies. Through the MPN research consortium, she is the study chair for a multicenter phase I/II study of CEP-701 in myelofibrosis; she has a particular interest in establishing reproducible bioassays from patient samples to evaluate for JAK2 activity and level of inhibition. She is currently assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and she intends to cover the areas of both late-preclinical and early-clinical testing of novel therapies in hematologic malignancies in her career.

Heidi D. Klepin, MD, MS

Dr. Klepin completed her fellowship training in geriatrics, hematology, and oncology at Wake Forest University and received a master’s degree in Health Sciences Research from the Wake Forest University Graduate School. Her research emphasizes three themes: 1) the predictive value of baseline physical and cognitive function on treatment response and toxicity, 2) the impact of cancer therapy on physical and cognitive function, and 3) interventions to promote functional independence during treatment. Dr. Klepin’s specific research projects focus on acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) as the model of a disease for which optimal therapy for older adults remains unclear, due in part to increased toxicity with standard treatments. With her award, she is evaluating the predictive value of a simple pretreatment bedside geriatric assessment battery on treatment related-mortality and overall survival, and whether tumor biology modifies this relationship. Post-treatment follow-up assessments are also conducted to assess the impact of induction chemotherapy on multiple geriatric domains relevant to functional independence and quality of life. Additionally, Dr. Klepin collaborated on a recently completed pilot study evaluating the feasibility of conducting an inpatient exercise intervention on older adults hospitalized for AML induction chemotherapy.

Han Liu, PhD

Dr. Liu is a postdoctoral research scholar in the Division of Molecular Oncology, Washington University in St. Louis. He received his BS degree in biotechnology and MS degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Peking University, China. He then joined Dr. Zhu Chen’s laboratory at the Shanghai Institute of Hematology, Rui-Jin Hospital, affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. During that time, Dr. Liu began his research career in hematology. His graduate studies focused on the physiological function of proteins related to hematopoiesis and leukemia, with special emphasis on MLL fusion proteins. He earned his PhD in genetics and trained as postdoctoral researcher until 2005, when he joined Dr. James Hsieh’s laboratory at Washington University. Dr. Liu continues to study the molecular basis for MLL leukemia. His work focuses on the role of MLL in the cell-cycle regulation. Dr. Liu discovered a biphasic expression of MLL through cell cycle, which is lost in MLL leukemias. With the ASH Scholar Award, he is currently investigating the function of MLL in DNA damage checkpoint and how the MLL-fusion proteins will cause checkpoint defects and contribute to the development of MLL leukemias.

Takahiro Maeda, MD, PhD

Dr. Maeda received his medical degree from Nagoya University in 1994. After completing his internship, residency, and clinical training in hematology-oncology at Konan Showa Hospital and Toyohashi Municipal Hospital, he returned to Nagoya University in 1999 to obtain a PhD degree with a keen interest in translational therapeutics. Dr. Maeda received a doctorate in hematology-oncology in 2002 and engaged in postdoctoral studies at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from 2001-2006. In 2007, Dr. Maeda accepted an assistant professor position in the Department of Hematopoietic Stem Cell and Leukemia Research at Beckman Institute of the City of Hope. Dr. Maeda wants to investigate the various mechanisms by which hematologic malignancies develop. His ultimate goal is to discover new therapeutic approaches for these diseases. During his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Maeda found that the transcription factor LRF (for leukemia/lymphoma related factor) is a proto-oncogene and a master regulator of hematopoietic cell development.

Shannon McKinney-Freeman, PhD

Dr. McKinney-Freeman first became interested in blood as a high school student after her father underwent a bone marrow transplant to treat his myelodysplasia. She received degrees in chemistry and biology from Ripon College, Ripon, WI, in 1998 and a PhD in immunology from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, in 2003. While working in the lab of Dr. Margaret Goodell as a graduate student, she demonstrated that skeletal muscle-derived hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) activity was the result of itinerant HSCs rather than trans-differentiating myogenic stem cells. Dr. McKinney-Freeman then joined the lab of Dr. George Daley at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School to study hematopoietic development and the hematopoietic potential of pluripotent stem cells.  Dr. Daley had just published data that showed that HoxB4 expression could drive the production of HSC-like cells from embryonic stem cells (ESCs). However, little was known about the phenotype of these ESC-HSCs and their relationship to in vivo HSC compartments. Dr. McKinney-Freeman’s work in Dr. Daley’s lab has revealed that these cells display traits of HSC compartments present during early development and lack a direct in vivo correlate. Dr. McKinney-Freeman is currently studying the gene networks that regulate HSC emergence during ontogeny and from ESCs.

Akil Merchant, MD

Dr. Merchant is a medical oncology fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where he studies normal and malignant hematopoiesis. Dr. Merchant’s previous work, in the laboratory of Dr. Margaret Goodell, focused on understanding the genetic programs regulating hematopoietic stem cells and their responses to chemotherapy. His current work builds on these insights to explore how dysregulation of normal developmental pathways critical for hematopoiesis leads to cancer and chemoresistance. With his current mentor, Dr. Bill Matsui, he has demonstrated that Hedgehog signaling is critical for myeloid development and is up-regulated in leukemic cancer stem cells. As an ASH Scholar, his project is to better understand the clinical consequences of Hedgehog activation in leukemia and test pathway inhibitors as new therapies for hematologic diseases. In addition to his work on Hedgehog signaling, he has shown that the transcription factor, Nrf2, essential for protecting cells from oxidative stress, is required for normal hematopoietic stem cell function and mediates chemoresistance in leukemia. At the conclusion of his fellowship, Dr. Merchant plans a career as a translational researcher in hematologic malignancies. 

David Motto, MD, PhD

Dr. Motto is an assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Iowa.  Dr. Motto received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Iowa and completed his clinical training in pediatrics and pediatric hematology-oncology at the University of Michigan.  Dr. Motto’s laboratory studies the biochemistry, physiology, and genetics of blood clotting diseases and platelet biology. Currently, a strong focus is on the thrombotic microangiopathies (TMAs), which are characterized clinically by small blood vessel thrombosis of various organs, coupled with thrombocytopenia and the physical destruction of red blood cells. The two most common TMAs are thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) and the closely related hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS). Dr. Motto’s ASH Scholar Award focuses on investigation of potential shared mechanisms of pathogenesis between TTP and HUS.

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