Speaker Biographies
Jason Berman
Dr. Jason Berman is the CEO and Scientific Director of the CHEO Research Institute and the Vice President Research at CHEO. He is also a Full Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is a practicing pediatric hematologist/oncologist and clinician scientist. Previously he served as Associate Chair, Research, Department of Pediatrics, and Professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology & Immunology and Pathology at Dalhousie University and interim Vice President Research, Innovation and Knowledge Translation for the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He over saw the pediatric leukemia program for the Maritimes from 2005-2019 and currently chairs an international clinical trial for children with Down syndrome and myeloid leukemia. He is internationally recognized for pioneering research using zebra fish to study childhood cancers and rare inherited diseases. His laboratory served as the Atlantic node of the Centre for Drug Research and Development and a national hub for zebra fish modeling of orphan diseases. He was formally co-chair of the C17 Childhood Cancer Network Developmental Therapeutics Committee and a member of the Clinical Guidance Panel of the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review. He is president of the Canadian Hematology Society and a founding member of the Canadian Rare Disease Models and Mechanisms Network. Dr. Berman is Chair of the Canadian Maternal Infant Child and Youth Research Network Board. Recognition of his leadership in cancer research resulted in membership on the Board of Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, where he chairs the research committee. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Cancer Research, as the only representative for pediatric oncology.
Email Contact: JBerman@cheo.on.ca
Amy and Kent Bratsch
We are Amy and Kent Bratsch, parents of Samantha (25), Nick (23) and Noah (16). Noah has Down syndrome and was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2009 soon after he turned 4 years old. Noah was treated for 3 ½ years at Texas Children's Hospital by Dr. Karen Rabin and team. We appreciate being part of this symposium.
John Crispino
Dr. John Crispino is Chief of the Division of Experimental Hematology at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He received a PhD in biochemistry from MIT and completed post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory has been studying the increased risk of leukemia in children with Down syndrome for 20 years and has made many seminal discoveries including the identification of GATA1 mutations in myeloid leukemia of Down syndrome. Current research is focused on identifying the contributions of chromosome 21 genes to leukemia and defining the effect of GATA1 mutations on hematopoiesis.
Email Contact: john.crispino@stjude.org
Adam de Smith
Adam de Smith, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the University of Southern California Center for Genetic Epidemiology, in the Department of Population and Public Health Science, and is a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is a genetic epidemiologist with a research focus on understanding the causes of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer. Dr. de Smith has a particular interest in understanding the increased risk of leukemia in children with Down syndrome, and developed the International Study of Down Syndrome Acute Leukemia to investigate risk factors for DS -ALL. He is also a member of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Epidemiology Committee, the Childhood Cancer and Leukemia International Consortium (CLIC), and the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia (CIRCLE).
Email Contact: desmith@usc.edu
Joaquin Espinosa
Dr. Espinosa is the Executive Director of the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Espinosa received his B.S. in Biology from the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1994, and a PhD in Biology from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1999. Supported by a fellowship from the PEW Charitable Trusts, Dr. Espinosa completed his post-doctoral training at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. In 2004, supported by a fellowship from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, he began his independent appointment at the University of Colorado Boulder, in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. In 2009 he was appointed to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as an Early Career Scientist. Dr. Espinosa directs a diverse research program with emphasis on cancer biology, Down syndrome, and COVID-19. At the Crnic Institute, Dr. Espinosa directs the Human Trisome Project, a pan-omics cohort study of the population with Down syndrome, which has enabled the design and launch of novel clinical trials to improve health outcomes in Down syndrome. Dr. Espinosa currently serves as the Leader of the Administrative and Outreach Core of the NIH INCLUDE Project Data Coordinating Center, a new data resource that aims to accelerate discoveries into the mechanisms underlying the increased risk of co-occurring medical conditions in people with Down syndrome, including hematological malignancies.
Email Contact: joaquin.espinosa@cuanschutz.edu
Alan Gamis
Dr Alan Gamis, prior to chairing COG AAML0531 from 2006-2010, investigated the outcomes and best therapeutic approaches for children with myeloid leukemias of Down syndrome (MLDS) beginning with finding the unique impact of age upon survival later determined to be a result of the high prevalence of GATA1 mutated AML in these children under age 4 years. Building on this, he chaired the first clinical trial focused on MLDS, COG-A2971, that additionally was the first large scale prospective study of transient myeloproliferative disorder that elucidated risk stratified therapeutic approaches for TMD as well as its natural history. Dr Gamis using these experiences subsequently guided, as COG Myeloid Steering Committee Chair from 2006-2013, the development of the succeeding COG trials for MLDS, AAML0431 and AAML1531.
Email Contact: agamis@cmh.edu
Christine Grady
Christine Grady is a nurse bioethicist, senior investigator, and Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Her research focuses on clinical research ethics and on ethical issues faced by nurses and other healthcare providers. Dr. Grady has authored more than 200 papers in the biomedical and bioethics literature and authored or edited several books, including The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics.
Email Contact: cgrady@cc.nih.gov
Maria Monica Gramatges
Maria Monica Gramatges, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine. She is a pediatric oncologist and physician scientist. Her highly collaborative research investigates genetic risks underlying risk for cancer therapy-related toxicities, including issues pertaining to cancer survivorship. Together with Drs. Rabin and Lupo, she is leading an NIH NCI R01-funded study that will determine the prevalence of chronic health conditions and neurocognitive outcomes among survivors of Down syndrome-associated acute leukemias, compared with children that have Down syndrome and no cancer history.
Email Contact: gramatge@bcm.edu
Hans Hitzler
Dr. Hitzler is a member of the Division of Hematology Oncology at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. He is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto and Senior Scientist in the Program Developmental and Stem Cell Biology at the SickKids Research Institute. He is co-chair of clinical trial AAML1531 conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) for children with myeloid leukemia associated with Down syndrome and part of the Down syndrome ALL task force within COG. His experimental research focuses on the molecular events underlying the development of transient abnormal myelopoiesis (TAM) and myeloid leukemia associated with Down syndrome (ML-DS). His advocacy efforts focus on access for children with Down syndrome to trials of new agents, CAR T cell therapy and studies of late effects of leukemia treatment.
Email Contact: johann.hitzler@sickkids.ca
Shai Izraeli
Professor Izraeli is the Director of the Pediatric Hematology Oncology Division at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel. He is also the Shaprio professor and head of the Dotan center for research of hematological malignancies in Tel Aviv University and a research professor at the department of systems biology at the Beckman Institute at City of Hope, Duarte CA, USA. He was recently elected as a founding member of the Israel National Academy of Scientific Medicine. Prof. Izraeli is a member of the executive committee and the chair of hematological malignancies in the ITCC (Innovative Therapeutics of Childhood Cancer) The European organization for promotion of clinical trials of new drugs for children with cancer by either the pharmaceutical and biotech industries or academia. He has been the Treasurer, Chair of the Research Committee, and member of the Executive Board of the European Hematology Association. His major research interest is in hematological malignancies and their predisposition syndromes. The research of Down Syndrome leukemia research has led to discoveries translated to novel cancer diagnostics and therapies. He published more than 200 peer reviewed scientific publications and has been supported by multiple international research grants and has many international collaborations.
Email Contact: sizraeli@gmail.com
Jan-Henning Klusmann
The research group of Prof. Dr. Jan-Henning Klusmann, professor for pediatrics and director of the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Goethe University Frankfurt, has been focusing on molecular and translational studies on Myeloid Leukemia associated with Down syndrome (ML-DS). By combining exome and targeted resequencing of the largest collection of TAM/ML-DS samples with a functional genomics approach, they defined genetic lesions acquired in ML-DS that induce transformation providing a basis to develop refined treatment approaches. By using multi-omics and forward and reverse genetics, the group recently made a compelling and robust case for the role of the chromosome 21-encoded miR-125b and, subsequently, deregulated Arid3a as centraltoGata1s-driven leukemogenesis. These insights guide hypothesis-driven genetic and pharmacologic testing of therapeutic vulnerabilities in a comprehensive collection of ML-DS patient-derived xenografts. Prof. Klusmann is head of the TAM/ML-DS reference laboratory in Germany and is international coordinating investigator of the Phase 3 ML-DS 2018 trial.
Email Contact: Jan-Henning.Klusmann@kgu.de
John Levine
John Levine is Professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, where he is also Director of BMT Clinical Research. His research is focused on improving outcomes following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) or cellular immunotherapy in children, adolescents, and adults. He is co-Director of the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC), a worldwide research collaboration that studies acute graft-vs-host disease, the principal complication of allogeneic HCT. In this role, his team developed a blood test that can predict whether GVHD will respond to standard treatment. He also serves as the Chair of the Cellular Therapy Committee for Children’s Oncology Group and as Chair-Elect of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network.
Email Contact: john.levine@mssm.edu
Amanda Li
Amanda Li, MD, MSc is a pediatric oncologist, bone marrow transplant physician and the clinical director of the Cellular Therapies program at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. Her clinical research focuses on novel therapeutics and immunotherapy for pediatric leukemia, and she is a member of the Children’s Oncology Group AALL1731 Study Committee, focusing particularly on treatment of Down Syndrome patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Email Contact: ali3@cw.bc.ca
Philip Lupo
Philip Lupo, PhD is a genetic epidemiologist, professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, director of the Epidemiology and Population Sciences Program in the Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Center, and chair of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Epidemiology Committee. A focus of Dr. Lupo’s research is on cancer predisposition among children with congenital anomalies and genetic syndromes. Through this work, he has been involved in several large-scale efforts, including those in COG, to characterize inherited genetic susceptibility to acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children with Down syndrome. Additionally, Dr. Lupo is the principal investigator on several projects investigating the genetic overlap between congenital anomalies and pediatric cancer.
Email Contact: philip.lupo@bcm.edu
Sébastien Malinge
Dr. Malinge is heading a research team focused on understanding normal and malignant hematopoiesis at Telethon Kids Institute Cancer Centre in Perth, Australia. His contribution to the field of Down syndrome (DS) has led to the discovery of key players and mechanisms in leukemia predisposition, development, and maintenance. Using clinically relevant models of DS leukemia, Dr. Malinge’s group now aims to understand the cellular and molecular bases of treatment resistance to develop novel therapies, targeted on key weaknesses to improve long-term outcomes for children.
Email Contact: Sebastien.Malinge@telethonkids.org.au
Shannon Maude
Dr. Shannon Maude is an oncologist in the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr Maude served as Fellowship Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy and BMT Fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a Medical Director in the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania and leads clinical trials of engineered T cell therapies for childhood cancers. Dr Maude has a special interest in novel therapies for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, particularly targeted therapy approaches and engineered T cell therapy.
Email Contact: maude@chop.edu
Soheil Meshinchi
Dr. Soheil Meshinchi is an expert in leukemia biology, peripheral blood stem cell transplantation for children with leukemia, management of post-transplant relapse and targeted therapies for acute myeloid leukemia patients. He provides scientific leadership for many national and international committees and cooperative research efforts. He has a wealth of expertise in genomic profiling and determining the prognostic value of specific molecular alterations in AML and has developed numerous clinical assays that have been implemented in cooperative group trials. Dr. Meshinchi serves as director of the largest genome and transcriptome sequencing project in pediatric and young adult AML and has created a robust biorepository of viable cells, plasma and extracted nucleic acids from over 100,000 specimens from 3,000 patients. He has also fostered a consortium of computational and laboratory scientists to interrogate genomic data generated from these samples in order to guide the development of novel biomarkers and therapeutics.
Email Contact: smeshinc@fredhutch.org
Maureen M. O’Brien
Maureen M. O’Brien, MD, MS is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Medical Director of the Leukemia/Lymphoma Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She is a pediatric oncologist and clinical researcher with specific interests in both novel therapies for relapsed and high-risk leukemias as well as supportive care and toxicity management for children undergoing leukemia therapy, including children with Down syndrome. She is the Study Chair for the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) AALL1621 trial of inotuzumab ozogamicin in relapsed B-ALL, and the Study Co-Chair of COG AALL1732, the current frontline trial for high-risk B-ALL. She is a study committee member for the recent COG trial for children with Down syndrome and AML, with a focus on infectious and cardiac toxicities.
Email Contact: Maureen.OBrien@cchmc.org
Melissa Parisi
Melissa A. Parisi, M.D., Ph.D., is the Chief of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Prior to moving to NIH in 2008, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, where she was a clinical geneticist and researcher in the field of human hindbrain malformations. She currently provides leadership to the IDD Research Centers program at NICHD, the Down syndrome patient registry, DS-Connect®, and the INCLUDE (INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE) Project, a trans-NIH initiative to address critical health and quality-of-life needs for individuals with Down syndrome launched in 2018.
Email Contact: parisima@mail.nih.gov
Christina Peters
Christina Peters is Professor of Paediatrics at the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation of St. Anna Children's Hospital in Vienna, Austria and is principal investigator of active studies within the EBMT and IBFM for the treatment of pediatric leukemia. Her research interests include allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation in children and adolescents with malignant and non-malignant diseases from related and unrelated donors, infectious and toxic complications after stem cell transplantation, adoptive therapies for hematological malignancies and family-oriented rehabilitation for children with life threatening diseases. She is international study chair of the multinational trial investigating the role of TBI vs. Chemo-conditioning in children and adolescents with ALL (“FORUM“). Dr. Peters chaired the EBMT Paediatric Diseases Working Party between 2008 and 2014. As an expert speaker, Dr. Peters has presented on a variety of topics at many symposia, meetings and seminars. She has authored and co-authored numerous papers in peer-review journals such as Lancet, New England Journal of Medicines, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Blood, Vox Sanguinis, Leukemia, Haematologica, British Journal of Haematology, and The Pediatric Clinics of North America. She acts as a regular reviewer of publications for hematology, pediatric and leukemia journals. Prof. Peters is member of many professional societies including IBFM, CIBMTR, the German and Austrian Society of Paediatric Haematology and the Austrian Gene Therapy Commission. Furthermore, Dr. Peters is a member of the Advisory Board of the Austrian Ministry of Health, the Bioethical committee of the Austrian Prime Minister and member of the ENPREMA (European Network Paediatric Research at EMA).
Email Contact: christina.peters@stanna.at
Karen Rabin
Karen Rabin, MD, PhD is Professor of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Baylor College of Medicine, and Director of the Leukemia Program at Texas Children’s Cancer Center. Dr. Rabin is a physician scientist with expertise in the genomics and clinical management of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), with a particular research focus in ALL biology and therapeutic strategies in children with Down syndrome. She is a member of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) ALL Executive Committee, with leadership positions including Vice-Chair of ALL Biology; Vice-Chair of the current COG study for newly diagnosed Standard Risk and Down syndrome ALL; and Chair of the Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia & Lymphoma Down Syndrome Committee.
Email Contact: krrabin@texaschildrens.org
Nirali Shah
Dr. Shah is a physician scientist who serves as the Head of the Hematologic Malignancies Section of the Pediatric Oncology Branch. Her primary research interests focus on translation of immunotherapeutic approaches to treat high-risk hematologic malignancies in children, adolescents, and young adults. She has a particular interest in prevention and treatment of relapsed disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Her clinical trials focus on exploring and optimizing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell based strategies and other antibody-based therapies to target surface proteins found on leukemia cells to improve outcomes for chemotherapy refractory disease. Additional areas of expertise include pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in both malignant and non-malignant diseases, development of early phase clinical trials in pediatric oncology, and ethical considerations for inclusion of minors in research.
Email Contact: nirali.shah@nih.gov
Malcolm A. Smith
Dr. Smith is Associate Branch Chief, Pediatrics, in the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP), NCI. Dr. Smith serves as the primary NCI liaison for hematologic malignancies and brain cancers in childhood cancer researchers in the Children’s Oncology Group (COGO). He also serves as the Program Director for the Pediatric Early Phase Clinical Trials Network (PEP-CTN), the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium and the Pediatric Preclinical in Vivo Testing (PIVOT) Program.
Email Contact: smithm@ctep.nci.nih.gov
Donna L. Snyder
Donna L. Snyder, MD, MBE, leads the Ethics and International Team and serves as the Senior Pediatric Ethicist in the Office of Pediatric Therapeutics (OPT), Office of Clinical Policy and Programs (OCPP), within the Commissioner (OC), at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Snyder is a board-certified pediatrician and bioethicist. She joined FDA in 2012, serving as a medical officer and acting team lead in the Division of Pediatric and Maternal Health within the Office of New Drugs before joining OPT in 2016. Prior to joining the FDA, her wide-ranging experience included general pediatric practice, work in research ethics, for both an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the NICHD IRB, clinical research, and consulting for the pharmaceutical industry.
Email Contact: Donna.Snyder@fda.hhs.gov
Sarah Tasian
Sarah K Tasian, MD is a pediatric oncologist and physician-scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who is interested in development of molecularly targeted therapeutics for children with high-risk leukemias. She specializes in the clinical care of children with leukemia and lymphoma, serves as the Chief of the Hematologic Malignancies Program at CHOP, and is an internationally recognized expert in pediatric ALL and AML. Her bench-to-bedside and bedside-back-to-bench translational laboratory research program focuses upon testing of small molecule inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapies in genetic subsets of childhood ALL and AML. Dr Tasian has leadership roles in the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) ALL and Myeloid Diseases committees and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society PedAL/EuPAL consortium, is the COG Developmental Therapeutics committee Vice-Chair of Biology for Hematologic Malignancies and leads or co-leads several national or international early phase clinical trials testing precision medicine therapies in children with high-risk leukemias.
Email Contact: TasianS@chop.edu
Anupam Verma
Anupam Verma, MBBS MD FAAP, is an Associate Research Physician in the hematologic malignancies section of the Pediatric Oncology Branch (POB) at National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is a pediatric oncologist with a research focus on clinical trial development and conduction in high risk pediatric leukemias. Dr Verma has an interest in clinical trials designs for children with Down Syndrome with leukemia. She is a member of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Myeloid and Lymphoid Committees and Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia & Lymphoma (TACL).
Email Contact: anupam.verma@nih.gov
Jun J. Yang
Jun J. Yang PhD is a Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Department at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He is also a member of the Hematological Malignancies Program of the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Yang’s research focuses on genomics and pharmacogenomics of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Together with Drs. Lupo and Rabin, he is co-leading the genomic profiling studies of ALL in children with Down syndrome, using whole genome seq and whole transcriptome seq. This work is aimed to provide a comprehensive characterization of the genomic landscape of ALL with this unique etiology.
Email Contact: jun.yang@stjude.org