ASH News Daily 2017 - Issue 1 - B-46

ASH News Daily

Page B-46

Saturday, December 9, 2017

MupdAte
iNoRity
RecRuitMeNt
iNitiAtive

Reception
«« From Page B-1

Please join us this evening at the
Georgia Aquarium to hear the impressive research presentations and
to learn more about these enriching
opportunities. The event will conclude with a dinner and networking session. Read more about the
ASH-AMFDP winners below.

Allistair Abraham, MD, is an attending physician and blood and
marrow transplantation specialist at Children's National Medical
Center, and an assistant professor
of pediatrics at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, DC.
Dr. Abraham's research focuses
on improving curative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
for sickle cell disease (SCD). More
specifically, he will study immune
mechanisms of rejection in haploidentical transplantation for SCD
and will also be evaluating virus-

specific T cell (VST) recovery after
transplantation and determining if
VST infusions can speed this recovery. "My hope is this work will ultimately lead to a safe and effective
curative option for essentially any
patient with sickle cell disease," Dr.
Abraham says. "ASH-AMFDP provides the protected research time
and strong mentorship to hone my
research approach in both the laboratory and the clinic."
From his perspective, the
award's mentorship component is
the key element because it unites
scholars and established leaders
who can provide advice and valu-

MCL-1, a BCL-2 family member, is an

in MCL-1-dependent AML1-3

To learn more about MCL-1, visit
us at the ASH Annual Meeting
at Booth #503

A matter of cell life
and cell death

Learn more at www.toleropharma.com

Tolero Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a leader in developing novel therapeutics to inhibit biological drivers of
hematologic and oncologic diseases by targeting pathways for gene transcription and drug resistance.

References: 1. Glaser SP, Lee EF, Trounson E, et al. Anti-apoptotic Mcl-1 is essential for the development and sustained growth of acute myeloid leukemia. Genes Dev. 2012;26(2):120-125.
2. Xiang Z, Luo H, Payton JE, et al. Mcl1 haploinsufficiency protects mice from Myc-induced acute myeloid leukemia. J Clin Invest. 2010;120(6):2109-2118. 3. Perciavalle RM, Opferman JT. Delving deeper:
MCL-1's contributions to normal and cancer biology. Trends Cell Biol. 2013;23(1):22-29.
Tolero Pharmaceuticals is a registered trademark of Tolero Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in the US. ©2017 Boston Biomedical, Inc. All rights reserved. PM-ALV-0002 10/2017

able perspective on how best to address research problems - in Dr.
Abraham's case, the limitations of
curative transplantation for SCD.
He also cites the importance of
AMFDP's career development support in producing a diverse group
of accomplished alumni.
Dr. Abraham earned his undergraduate degree from Barry University and proceeded to complete
his MD at Georgetown University
School of Medicine in Washington,
DC. He received residency training
in pediatrics at Jackson Memorial
Hospital and completed a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Dr. Abraham comments that
upon receiving the award, he was
a bit in disbelief. "I remember reading the letter and my jaw dropping
... I had seen firsthand the high
quality of the other candidates and
did not expect to be an awardee."
Of course, now that the news has
begun to sink in, Dr. Abraham is
motivated for what's next: "It's
time to put my head down and get
the work done."
Melody Smith, MD, is an instructor in the Adult Bone Marrow
Transplant Service at Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr.
Smith's work to date has focused
on the use of donor-derived CD19targeted chimeric antigen receptor
(CAR) T cells following allogeneic
stem cell transplant (HSCT) in order to reduce the risk of relapse and
attenuate graft-versus-host-disease
in patients with CD19+ hematologic malignancies.
"My long-term research interest
includes investigating the immunobiology of novel cell therapies postHSCT," Dr. Smith says, and with
support from the ASH-AMFDP
award, she looks forward to continually expand on her hematologic
research interests, with the ultimate
goal of becoming an independent
investigator.
Dr. Smith completed her bachelor of sciences degree in biology at
Vanderbilt University and received
her MD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in
Dallas, were she also trained and
completed her residency in internal
medicine. In 2015, she completed
her fellowship in medical hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center and Weill
Cornell Medical College. Recently
published research by Dr. Smith
includes an article in Nature Medicine, highlighting her and her colleagues' work in a murine model
in which administration of donor
CD19 CAR T cells following bone
marrow transplantation decreases
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASH News Daily 2017 - Issue 1