2009-12-06

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.

Charles Mullighan, MD

Dr. Mullighan is assistant member in the Department of Pathology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. He received his medical degree from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 1993. Dr. Mullighan performed doctoral work in immunogenetics in Oxford, England, and then trained in internal medicine, clinical hematology, and hematopathology at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide. He joined St. Jude in 2004 as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. James Downing and became a faculty member at the hospital in 2008. Dr. Mullighan’s research interests are the genomic analysis and experimental modeling of leukemia, notably acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and chronic myeloid leukemia. His work, using high-resolution genomic profiling, has identified a number of novel genetic alterations that contribute to the pathogenesis and treatment responsiveness of ALL. This work has been published in Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He was recently named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.

Eric Mullins, MD

Dr. Mullins is a pediatric hematologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center with a clinical interest in hemostasis and thrombosis. His undergraduate and medical degrees were awarded by the University of Missouri, followed by residency at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. While completing his fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Dr. Mullins received the National Hemophilia Foundation Clinical Fellow Award and served as chief fellow. In the laboratory of Dr. Jay L. Degen, Dr. Mullins began an investigation into the role of thrombin in the maintenance of vascular integrity, development, and inflammation. This work led him to further this investigation of the role of thrombin and thrombin targets in asthmatic disease in mice. Previous studies implicated both activated thrombin and fibrin in the pathogenesis of asthma, but the precise contribution of these hemostatic factors to the disease has not been characterized. His work focuses on using existing and novel transgenic mice to define the contribution of coagulation proteins to asthmatic disease. He has also begun an exciting new investigation into the role of thrombin-mediated proteolysis in experimental autoimmune encephalitis, with strong evidence pointing to the critical role of thrombin in exacerbation of this disease process.

Cindy N. Roy, PhD

Dr. Roy received her PhD in cell biology from Oregon Health Sciences University. Guided by Caroline Enns, PhD, she investigated the role of the hereditary hemochromatosis gene product, HFE, in the regulation of transferrin-mediated cellular iron uptake. Dr. Roy was mentored through her postdoctoral fellowship in hematology by Dr. Nancy Andrews at Harvard Medical School/Children’s Hospital Boston. There, she investigated the role of hepcidin antimicrobial peptide in the pathogenesis of anemia associated with inflammation and gained expertise in the development of animal models of human disease. Dr. Roy joined the faculty of the Biology of Frailty Program in the Division of Medicine and Gerontology at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2007. She aims to develop novel strategies and tools for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of anemia in the elderly. Currently, her laboratory is working toward a molecular understanding of how pro-inflammatory cytokines modulate erythrocyte iron recycling and the production and maturation of erythroid progenitors. Dr. Roy would like to thank Drs. Enns, Andrews, and Walston; ASH; and ASH’s supporters for their commitment to her personal and professional development.

Joshua Schiffman, MD

Dr. Joshua Schiffman’s research explores the predisposition to and genetic alterations of childhood cancers, with a focus on leukemia. He is an assistant professor in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Primary Children’s Medical Center, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences, and investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine. He is also a member of the Center for Children’s Cancer Research (C3R) and is the medical director of the High Risk Pediatric Cancer Clinic, where he cares for children and families with hereditary cancer syndromes. Dr. Schiffman previously completed his fellowship training in pediatric hematology/oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine. This was followed by a year in which he worked in Dr. James Ford’s laboratory at Stanford University and co-directed the Pediatric Cancer Genetics Clinic at Stanford. Under Dr. Ford’s mentorship, Dr. Schiffman learned how to acquire clinical samples from high-risk patients with cancer predisposition syndromes and perform genomic analyses to better understand cancer etiology and clinical outcome. His translational laboratory uses next-generation microarray technology to detect copy-number variations in constitutional DNA and investigates its contribution to copy-number aberrations in hematologic malignancies.

Matthew P. Strout, MD, PhD

Dr. Strout is an instructor at Yale Cancer Center, Section of Hematology, and attending physician at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. He is also an instructor in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Strout earned his PhD from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, where, under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Caligiuri, he co-discovered and characterized the partial tandem duplication of the MLL gene in acute myeloid leukemia. After obtaining his MD from The Ohio State University, Dr. Strout moved to Yale University, where he completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology. Dr. Strout is now studying the role of immune diversification in the pathogenesis of lymphoid malignancy. He is specifically interested in understanding the mechanisms that maintain genomic stability during somatic hypermutation and how those mechanisms break down during malignant transformation. In addition to his support from ASH, Dr. Strout has received research support from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the National Cancer Institute.

Geoffrey Uy, MD

Dr. Uy is interested in the development of novel agents and treatment approaches for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia. After completing his fellowship in hematology-oncology at Washington University, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor of medicine in the Section of BMT & Leukemia. During his fellowship, Dr. Uy trained in the lab of Dr. Timothy J. Ley, where he investigated the role of proteolytic cleavage of PML-RARα in the pathogenesis of acute promyelocytic leukemia. In conjunction with Dr. John DiPersio, he is currently conducting a phase I/II study of AMD3100 (plerixafor) in combination with mitoxantrone, etoposide, and cytarabine for relapsed or refractory AML. AMD3100 is a CXCR4 antagonist currently under clinical development as a stem cell mobilizing agent for use in hematopoietic transplantation. Preclinical evidence suggests that AMD3100 can disrupt the interaction of leukemic blasts with the bone marrow microenvironment, sensitizing these cells to genotoxic stresses such as chemotherapy. This trial is designed as a proof-of-concept study to determine if AMD3100 “priming” can be safely administered and whether it can improve response rates in AML. 

Loren D. Walensky, MD, PhD

Dr. Walensky is an assistant professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, medical director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Program in Cancer Chemical Biology, and attending physician in the Department of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Boston. His laboratory’s research focuses on the chemical biology of deregulated apoptotic and transcriptional pathways in cancer, with the goal of developing an arsenal of new compounds — a “chemical toolbox” — to investigate and modulate protein interactions that cause cancer. To achieve these objectives, his lab takes a multidisciplinary approach that employs synthetic chemistry techniques, structural biology analyses, and biochemical, cellular, and mouse modeling experiments to systematically dissect the pathologic signaling pathways of interest. Dr. Walensky received his MD and PhD degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, completing his graduate training in the laboratory of Dr. Solomon H. Snyder. Dr. Walensky trained in pediatrics at the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics and completed fellowship training in pediatric hematology/oncology at Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Boston. His postdoctoral fellowship research, which led to the development of pro-apoptotic “stapled” peptides, was jointly mentored by Dr. Stanley J. Korsmeyer of Dana-Farber and Dr. Gregory L. Verdine of Harvard University. Dr. Walensky’s ASH-sponsored research program involves the creation of new technologies to dissect the molecular mechanism of BAX-mediated apoptosis, with a keen eye toward clinical application.

Zack Z. Wang, PhD

Dr. Wang is a principal investigator at Maine Medical Center Research Institute (MMCRI) and the Center for Molecular Medicine; he received his PhD at Boston University School of Medicine in the Department of Biochemistry in 1998. He did his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. David Scadden at the Center of Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Stem Cell Institute, where he investigated hematopoietic and blood vessel development. His study demonstrated that tyrosine kinase receptor EphB4 plays a crucial role in regulating hemangioblast development. After leaving an instructor position at Harvard Medical School, he joined MMCRI in 2005 to establish his independent laboratory and direct the ES cell and FACS core facility. His laboratory focuses on defining the factors to direct pluripotent stem cell differentiation into hematopoietic and cardiovascular cells.

David C. Williams Jr., MD, PhD

Dr. Williams completed a Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Virginia in 1998, where he earned a PhD in biophysics and an MD. His residency training was in anatomic pathology at Duke University, where he developed an interest in hematopathology. He spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health pursuing structural biology research with Dr. G. Marius Clore. Dr. Williams then decided to finish his clinical training with a hematopathology fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University and then pursued an academic research career. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Pathology Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, spending most of his time running a research laboratory focused on the structural biology of transcription factor complexes important for globin gene regulation and leukemogenesis. His clinical responsibilities primarily involve performing and interpreting bone marrow biopsies for a very active clinical service. While Dr. Williams’ clinical and research expertise appear to be quite disparate, both appeal to his interest in structure-function relationships. Ultimately, his goal is to use his basic science skills to help develop biologically targeted therapy for hematopoietic diseases.

Jing Yang, PhD

Dr. Yang works at the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. She obtained her PhD in 2002 from the Cancer Research Institute, Xiangya Medical College, at Central South University in China. In 2004, Dr. Yang joined the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as a postdoctoral fellow. Shortly thereafter, she was recruited to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Yang’s specific concentration in translational research is to explore the ability of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against human ß₂-microglobulin (ß₂M) to induce apoptosis in myeloma and elucidate the underlying mechanism. She is successfully generating her own mAbs, evaluating tumoricidal effects of the mAbs to treat myeloma and other hematologic malignances and the established tumors in SCID mice, elucidating apoptosis and signaling pathways in tumor cells, and examining the potential toxicity of the mAbs on normal cells. Her studies provide strong evidence for the future application of anti-ß2M mAbs as therapeutic agents for myeloma and other hematologic malignances.

Chengcheng (Alec) Zhang, PhD

Dr. Zhang earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Science and Technology of China and his master’s at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 1995 to 1999, he pursued his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studying estrogen receptor-mediated transcriptional regulation and signal transduction. In 2000, he went on to perform postdoctoral work with Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, with fellowship support from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. There Dr. Zhang developed his interest in identification of novel growth factors and markers for hematopoietic stem cells and establishment of ex vivo culture systems for expanding these cells. Dr. Zhang joined UT Southwestern Medical Center as an assistant professor in the department of Physiology and Development Biology in January 2007. He is studying the extrinsic control of cell fates of hematopoietic stem cells, leukemia stem cells, and the interplay between hematopoietic stem cells, microenvironment, and cancer. Dr. Zhang’s goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing the adult stem cell fate determination and apply the knowledge obtained from these studies to the development of new stem cell transplantation strategies and gene therapies for treating cancer and other diseases.

Wolfgang Bergmeier, PhD

Dr. Bergmeier is an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology at Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Bergmeier received his PhD degree from the department of Molecular Oncology at Witten-Herdecke University in Germany. He completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Denisa Wagner at the Immune Disease Institute/ Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he investigated the biology of the platelet receptor for von Willebrand factor, GPIb-V-IX. After his promotion to instructor in pathology at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Bergmeier investigated the signaling mechanisms regulating platelet activation at the site of vascular injury, with a focus on the second messenger calcium (Ca²⁺). A major breakthrough in these studies was the identification of Ca²⁺ and DAG-regulated guanine nucleotide exchange factor I (CalDAG-GEFI, RasGRP2) as a critical sensor linking Ca²⁺ mobilization to various aspects of platelet activation, such as integrin activation, TxA₂ generation, and granule release. Ongoing studies are directed toward the evaluation of CalDAG-GEFI as a novel target for anti-platelet therapy, a better understanding of its regulation and function, and the identification of small molecule inhibitors. Dr. Bergmeier would like to thank ASH for its support.

Julien Y. Bertrand, PhD

Dr. Bertrand received his PhD in 2005, in France, where he characterized the development of definitive hematopoiesis in the mouse embryo. He showed that definitive hematopoiesis occurred in two successive waves consisting of yolk-sac-derived erythromyeloid precursors and AGM-derived hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). He then moved to David Traver’s laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, to take advantage of the zebrafish model to study the precise origin of HSCs. In order to do so, Dr. Bertrand characterized the ontogeny of hematopoiesis in this system by showing that definitive hematopoiesis in the zebrafish embryo proceeded in two successive waves during fish development. This work gave rise to two publications in Development in 2007 and 2008. He then started to take advantage of the transparency of the zebrafish embryo to directly image HSC development. By combining transgenic lines that express mCherry in endothelial cells and GFP in HSCs, he now can show the transfating of hemogenic endothelium into HSCs, a phenomenon that occurs in the floor of the aorta. In addition to the ASH fellowship, Dr. Bertrand has also received funding from the Irvington Institute for Immunology/Cancer Research Institute and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

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