Fall 2025
By Kathy Clute
Photography by Sam Ogden
Each year, nearly 200,000 Americans are diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, or another bloodborne cancer. Blood Cancer United has awarded $4.2 million in grants to eight Dana-Farber physician-scientists working to better understand, treat, and potentially cure these often deadly diseases.
Andrew Lane, MD, PhD, and Anthony Letai, MD, PhD, received the organization’s prestigious multiyear Discovery Grants, which support groundbreaking research of blood cancers’ properties and vulnerabilities to advance treatments for them.
Lane, associate chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia, is exploring how existing drugs that block the PI3 kinase gamma pathway in solid tumors could benefit certain patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Letai’s work focuses on improving the performance of CAR T cells—natural immune cells that are genetically modified to recognize and attack the proteins on the surface of cancer cells—against blood cancers. While CAR T cells have produced lifesaving results in some cases, their effectiveness is limited by how long they survive in the body.
Blood Cancer United, in collaboration with the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation and the Institute for Follicular Lymphoma Innovation, also awarded grants to Philippe Armand, MD, PhD, and Mark Murakami, MD. Armand is the chief of the Lymphoma Division and the Harold and Virginia Lash Endowed Chair in Lymphoma Research at Dana-Farber.
Follicular lymphoma (FL) is an often incurable type of indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It is typically managed through a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy that can have detrimental side effects and negatively impact quality of life.
Armand and co-principal investigator Reid Merryman, MD, are conducting a phase two clinical trial of a chemotherapy-free regimen based on bispecific antibodies in patients with previously untreated FL. If successful, the trial could pave the way for a new, effective, and chemotherapy-free frontline treatment option for FL patients. Murakami is focused on understanding how some lymphoma cells survive this treatment and go on to cause relapse, with the goal of selecting patients for this type of therapy and ultimately devising improved future treatments.
Other Blood Cancer United grantees are Rizwan Romee, MD (Clinical Trials), Reina Takeda, MD, PhD, and Nicoletta Cieri, MD, PhD (Special Fellows), and Rachel Mersfelder, a medical student studying with the David G. Nathan, MD, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School Kimberly Stegmaier, MD [Student Mentorship and Research Training (SMART)].
“Research is the key to unlocking the complexities of blood cancers, and we look forward with great anticipation to the results of these Dana-Farber studies and their positive impact on quality of life for blood cancer patients and their families,” said E. Anders Kolb, MD, Blood Cancer United’s president and CEO.
