Grants and Grant Recipients
For over 30 years, AAMDSIF has provided research grants totaling in excess of $5.5 million to an international group of more than 100 researchers to help advance the understanding and treatment of aplastic anemia , myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH).
The two-year grants have helped bring forth new insights into the causes and therapeutic approaches for these diseases. These grantee profiles present the grantees by year the awards were granted, and a summary of their grant-funded research projects.
Grant Year: 2016
Alina Dulau Florea, MD
Patricia and Vincent Geczik Legacy Fund
Summary
Our study involves the analysis of normal and abnormal cells in the bone marrow of patients with Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH). In this condition, due to a gene mutation, some bone marrow cells and their progeny in the blood lack an important cell surface component that functions as an anchor for other proteins, some of which attach to blood cells and protect them from destruction by complement, part our immune system. The result of this deficiency is a breakdown of red cells. If large quantities of red cells are destroyed, people become very tired, or have pain in the belly, head or when swallowing, or develop blood clots. The cause of the gene mutation is unknown. Some patients with other conditions, such as aplastic anemia (AA, a disease where marrow stops...
Kate MacNamara, PhD
Julia Malsin Research Fund
Bone marrow failure is the rare but devastating collapse of blood production, and if left untreated the disease is invariably fatal. Our current therapies are inadequate in the sense that they involve general immunosuppression or highly invasive treatments via bone marrow transplantation. In both genetic and acquired cases of bone marrow failure, excessive inflammation ultimately causes destruction of the stem cells required to maintain daily production of all blood cells. Inflammatory molecules such as interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) are known to contribute to pathology, yet exactly how stem cell function is compromised by these factors is not clear and remains an important question in understanding the pathogenesis of bone marrow failure.
We utilized a mouse model of bone marrow failure...
Grant Year: 2015
Jing Fang, MD, PhD
Michael Fernandes Research Fund
A major complication of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) is worsening cytopenias due to bone marrow failure. Novel therapeutic approaches are urgently needed for MDS, as current therapies have modest responses and many patients are not suitable candidates for bone marrow transplantation. Our preliminary study revealed a role of sequestosome 1/p62 in the pathogenesis and disease evolution of MDS. For this study, we will dissect the functional domains on p62 and associated signaling pathways that are necessary for the development and maintenance of MDS. Moreover, we propose to target p62-intacting complexes using a peptide approach as an attempt to target MDS clones and prevent disease evolution. This study will improve our understanding of MDS-associated bone marrow failure and may reveal...
Anastasios Karadimitris, MD, PhD
PNH Research and Support Foundation
Our proposed research addresses one of the main and unresolved issues in the biology of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and idiopathic aplastic anemia (IAA). Both disorders are considered to have an autoimmune mechanism involving auto-reactive T cells targeting hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) leading to their profound depletion. It is widely documented that the pathogenesis of IAA and PNH overlap to a great extent, with up to 50% of patients with IAA developing a PNH clone or bonafide PNH and a subgroup of patients with PNH evolving into IAA. The proposed work has the potential to unravel novel cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin HSC depletion in PNH and IAA, with wider implications for both the hematology and immunology scientific communities.
Katherine King, PhD
Liviya Anderson Research Fund
This AAMDSIF research grant will enable us to do basic and essential work on the effects of inflammatory signaling on bone marrow stem cells. We have known for some time that excessive inflammation can suppress bone marrow; now we are taking the next steps to find out how inflammation injures hematopoietic stem cells. We hope that our research will lead to novel ways to interrupt the development of aplastic anemia.
Shahram Kordasti, MD, PhD
Research is Hope Fund
Bone marrow failure syndromes are not only serious and debilitating diseases but they can also progress toward leukemia. Identifying the specific factors contributing into this malignant transition is extremely important. Our group focus in past few years has been the role of the immune system in bone marrow failure and we showed the importance of specific subtypes of immune cells in both pathogenesis and malignant transformation of these diseases. The AAMDSIF research grant will allow us to focus on differences in immune changes in aplastic anemia and paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and will enable us to utilize the state of the art technologies (such as multidimensional mass cytometry and high throughput DNA sequencing) to further understand the role of immune system in these...
Sicheng Wen, MD, PhD
Amy Gaynor Research Fund
Aplastic anemia is a potentially life-threatening bone marrow failure in which the body stops producing enough new blood cells. Marrow transplantation, antithymocyte globulin (ATG) treatment and other approaches can vary in effectiveness in approaching marrow aplasia. Extracellular vesicles are small particles released from cells that were initially thought to present cell “junk”, and later evaluated to be involved in cell-to-cell communication and affect the phenotype of target cells. In this study, we will evaluate the capacity of mesenchymal stem cell derived-extracellular vesicles (MSC-EV) to reverse aplasia in a murine model of aplastic anemia and identify the MSC-EV associated miRNA responsible for the reversal of aplastic anemia. This AA&MDSIF research grant will give us an...
Britta Will, PhD
Harold Spielberg Research Fund
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are the most common hematologic malignancies in the elderly, presenting as bone marrow failure and characterized by disorderly growth and differentiation of aberrant hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Bone marrow transplantation is currently the only curative option for MDS. Even though 5-azacitidine (5-aza) has resulted in clinical responses and improvements in overall survival, relapse and refractory disease continue to occur in some patients.
Recent findings show that cancer-initiating cells (CIC) can exist as pools of relatively quiescent cells that do not respond well to common cell-toxic agents and contribute to treatment failure. In fact, we and others have shown that karyotypically abnormal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) can survive during...
Grant Year: 2014
Daria Babushok, MD, PhD
Sam Jordan Research Fund, Stephen and Joanna Janowiak Research Fund, Torry Yahn Research Fund
Aplastic anemia (AA) is a devastating blood disorder, affecting children and adults, caused by immune attack on the bone marrow. Factors that determine recovery, relapse, and transformation to myelodysplasia in aAA remain poorly defined, and there is a dearth of studies in pediatric patients. Emerging data suggest that mutations in the bone marrow and in the pathogenic immune cells contribute to disease evolution and relapse. To study this, I will employ cutting-edge genomic techniques to characterize pathogenic mutations in aAA. These studies will improve treatment of patients with pediatric AA by allowing early detection of clonal evolution and disease progression.
Luis Batista, PhD
Bradley Richard Research Fund, Research is Hope Fund
Bone marrow failure is a serious condition that occurs when the bone marrow stops making enough healthy blood cells. A risk for bone marrow failure is genetic instability, including exacerbated shortening of telomeres (repetitive DNA sequences that cap chromosome ends). Using different genetic and biochemical approaches, this proposal will use cells derived from bone marrow failure patients that have telomere attrition as a platform for the development of clinical therapies against this disease. These experiments will increase our knowledge on stem cell function and regulation in bone marrow failure syndromes.