Speaker Biographies

Michael V. Callahan MD, DTM&H, MSPH, Director, Clinical Translation, Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center (VIC), Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School; President & Chief Medical Officer, United Therapeutics Corporation

Michael Callahan is physician scientist boarded in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and tropical medicine and is adjunct clinical faculty and Director, Clinical Translation at the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center (VIC) at Massachusetts General Hospital. From 2004 to 2013, Dr. Callahan led the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) medical countermeasure program which had generated 19 INDs and 6 NDA/BLAs, including several multibillion dollar companies and a return on taxpayer investment of 56:1. While in the federal government, Dr. Callahan staffed both U.S. and Asian regulatory meetings to ensure parody and adherence to Common Rule and Best Practices across international regulatory agencies, including the Expert Clinical Safety Community to disclose severe-adverse events in cytokine modulation, monoclonal immunotherapy and cellular immunotherapy. Following federal service, Dr. Callahan consulted for the FDA, McKinsey Consultants, Monitor Consulting, Vertex, Sanofi-Pasteur, Nantkwest, Genentech/Roche, and J.P Morgan. Since 2012, Dr. Callahan has served as President and Chief Medical Officer of Cellular Therapies at United Therapeutics Corporation and interim CMO of Northern Therapeutics in Ontario, Canada, where he oversees multicenter trials for engineered autologous and allogeneic cellular therapies.

Jianzhu Chen, PhD, Professor of Biology, Biology & Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jianzhu Chen is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Chen received a B.S. degree from Wuhan University in China and a Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow and then an instructor at Harvard Medical School before he joined the faculty at MIT. Dr. Chen’s research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Recently, his research activity has focused on macrophages in immunity and diseases and cancer immunotherapy.

Jian Chen, PhD, CEO, Celetrix Electroporation

Dr. Chen is the founder and CEO of Celetrix Electroporation, with BS from Tsinghua University and PhD from Cornell University in pharmacology. He completed his postdoctoral trainings in UCSD and Mount Sinai, and has authored a number of research papers and patents in the field of hematology and electroporation.

Colleen Delaney, MD, MSc, Founder and CSO, Executive Vice President, Research and Development, Nohla Therapeutics

Colleen Delaney is the Founder, Chief Scientific Officer and EVP of Research and Development at Nohla Therapeutics. She is also a Professor at the UW Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, and was a Member and recipient of the Madeline Dabney Adams Endowed Chair of the Fred Hutch Clinical Research Division. In addition, Colleen is a member on the Advisory Council on Blood Stem Cell Transplantation of the Health Resources and Services Administration. She also serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Society of Bone Marrow Transplant and the Cord Blood Association. In 2006, she established and became the Director of the Cord Blood Transplant Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, which has grown to be one of the busiest such programs in the country and the coordinating center of several multicenter clinical trials. She is the sponsor-investigator of three Investigational New Drug FDA files and has been the Principal Investigator of nine ongoing and completed clinical trials and several ancillary studies.

Colleen was also the Principal Investigator of a research laboratory focused on the role of the Notch signaling pathway in hematopoietic stem cell regulation and ex-vivo expansion of umbilical cord blood stem and progenitor cells for clinical applications. Her group at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center developed novel and clinically feasible methods for the ex vivo expansion of cord blood derived hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in the presence of Notch ligands. This work was translated into a pilot study investigating the use of ex vivo expanded cord blood progenitors to augment conventional cord blood transplantation. She has since extended this work to investigate the potential of cryopreserved, non-HLA matched “off the shelf” ex vivo expanded cord blood progenitor cells to provide rapid but transient myeloid reconstitution in the setting of cord blood transplant and following dose-intensive chemotherapy.

Colleen received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1996 and went on to complete a residency in Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco followed by a Fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/University of Washington.

Mark A. Exley, PhD, Vice President, Cellular Immunology, AgenTus Therapeutics, Inc.

Dr. Exley ‘postdoc-ed’ at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. Mark worked in industry on tolerizing and stimulating vaccines in immune-mediated and other diseases (respectively), returning to Harvard Medical Sschool as Faculty to functionally define human ‘NKT’ cells and help ascribe their roles, developing NKT cell-specific mAbs. He became Professor at Manchester University, UK, before returning to the US as VP, Cellular Immunology, Agenus (and now AgenTus). Mark continues to focus on regulation of immunity, innate lymphocytes and how this understanding can be exploited clinically in cancer (published NKT trial) and other diseases.

Sonia Feau, PhD, Associate Director, Immunology, Oncorus

Sonia Feau is the Associate Director of Immunology at Oncorus where she is responsible for leading the Immunology group evaluating new Immune enhancer payloads to combine with our oncolytic viruses and their mechanism of action. Prior to Oncorus, Sonia has years of immuno-oncology experience, proposing and evaluating new targets at Merck and initiating the Immuno-Oncology program at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Sonia received her post-doctoral training at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, CA where she studied CD8 T cell memory formation after bacterial and viral infections. Sonia received her Ph.D. in Immunology and Biotechnology from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy and University Toulouse III, France studying dendritic cells biology.

Martin Felices, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Co-Director, Translational Therapy Laboratory, Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation, University of Minnesota

Dr. Felices received his Ph.D. in immunology from UMASS Medical School in 2008, where his research focused on innate and adaptive immune subsets. He then pursued an industry postdoctoral fellowship at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, in Cambridge, MA, in the Developmental and Molecular Pathways group where he studied signaling pathways involved in liver injury and tumorogenesis. In 2011 he joined the University of Minnesota as a T32 postdoctoral fellow in the HOT division, focusing his research on NK cell biology, prior to becoming an assistant professor.

Dai Fukumura, MD, PhD, Deputy Director of Edwin L. Steele Laboratory and Investigator, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Dai Fukumura, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor and the Deputy Director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He is an internationally recognized expert in imaging, angiogenesis, vascular and tumor biology. Dr. Fukumura and his colleagues have developed various innovative intravital optical imaging techniques and sophisticated animal models – which more faithfully represent the clinical behavior of tumors – in collaboration with world-renowned experts. Dr. Fukumura’s research areas include 1) role of host-tumor interaction (microenvironment) in angiogenesis, tumor growth, metastasis and treatment response; 2) role of obesity in angiogenesis and tumor microenvironment, and progression, metastasis and treatment response; 3) role of nitric oxide in vessel formation, function, and normalization; 4) probing and exploiting tumor microenvironment using nanotechnology; and 5) tissue-engineered blood vessels.

Scott A. Gerber, PhD, Assistant Professor, Co-Director, Center for Tumor Immunology Research, Surgery, Microbiology, Immunology, Radiation Oncology, University of Rochester Medical Center

Dr. Gerber is a tumor immunologist whose laboratory focuses on harnessing the immune system to recognize and kill cancerous cells. His lab uses an immunotherapeutic approach to enhance the efficacy of chemo/radiotherapies to control or even cure both primary and metastatic malignancies.

Jode Goodridge, PhD, Senior Scientist, Cancer Immunotherapy, Fate Therapeutics

A Natural Killer cell biologist who joined Fate therapeutics from the Malmberg Lab in 2018. Involved as part of Fates NK cell team with the pre-clinical development and translation to bring CAR modified iPSC derived NK cells to the clinic for Cancer Immunotherapy.

Subramanya Hegde, PhD, Senior Scientist III, Foundational Immunology, Abbvie

Subramanya Hegde received PhD from University of Cologne, Germany and did his postdoctoral training at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Subramanya Hegde joined Abbvie Inc. in 2012. Subramanya is working on several early drug discovery projects for immunology indications and evaluated antibody, small molecule and antibody drug conjugate platforms. Studied the TNF biology and assessed the role of TNF secretion kinetics and trafficking on anti-TNF immunogenicity. Subramanya has established innate immune modulation group at Abbvie and currently leading several scientists working on cutting edge research on innate immune modulation. Initiated or involved in several internal and external collaborations with various functional groups and academic institutions.

Camilla Jandus, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor, Oncology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Camilla Jandus, MD, PhD, is Assistant Professor and Head of the “Targeting of cytokine secreting cell group” at the Department of Oncology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She is also Adjunct Scientist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne, Switzerland. Camilla Jandus graduated in 2003 from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bern, Switzerland, after a training at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and the obtaining of her MD thesis from the Institute of Pathology in Bern. From 2004 to 2008 she performed her MD-PhD training at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Lausanne, in the group of Prof P. Romero. Then, she joined for a 2-year post-doctoral training the Pharmacology Institute in Bern. In 2012, she was appointed Associate Investigator at the Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at the University of Lausanne, where from 2015-2018 she was supported by a prestigious Ambizione Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Since February 2019 she is SNSF Assistant Professor and group leader at the Department of Oncology of the University of Lausanne. Dr Jandus main scientific interest is in the study of T cell- and Innate Lymphoid Cell (ILC)- mediated immune responses to human tumors. She has been involved in the immune monitoring of several peptide-based clinical trials in melanoma patients and was among the first to use peptide-MHC class II multimers to characterize tumor-specific CD4 T cells in patients, directly ex-vivo. Her current focus is in the functional, phenotypical and T Cell Receptor (TCR) characterization of large panels of human tumor-specific CD4 T cell clones for adoptive cell transfer therapy in cancer patients (TCR gene therapy using autologous lymphocytes). In parallel, she is investigating the role of Innate lymphoid cell (ILC) subsets, a recently described family of innate immune effector cells, in the context of anti-tumor immunity. She has been pioneering in reporting the pro-tumoral role of the ILC2 subset in human tumors and she is currently developing strategies to target these cells therapeutically in patients.

Pushpa Jayaraman, PhD, Senior Investigator I, Exploratory Immuno Oncology, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research

Dr. Pushpa Jayaraman is a Senior Investigator within Immuno Oncology at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research where she leads a research team responsible for the evaluation of novel immunotherapeutics targeting tumor promoting inflammation within the tumor microenvironment. Prior to NIBR, she worked as an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital on dissecting the role of TIM-3, an immune checkpoint molecule in regulating innate and adaptive immunity during chronic bacterial infection. Dr. Jayaraman earned her doctorate in Pathobiology at the University of Washington, Seattle where she evaluated the role of neutralizing antibodies in modulating HIV disease course in elite controllers, and mother-to-child transmission. At NIBR, Dr. Jayaraman continues to work on TIM-3 and IL-1b and her team is involved in various stages of drug development, ranging from target discovery and validation to supporting translational efforts in the clinic.

Michael Klichinsky, PharmD, PhD, Co-Founder, Vice President, Discovery, Carisma Therapeutics

Michael is a co-inventor of the CAR Macrophage technology and a scientific co-founder of Carisma Therapeutics Inc. In his role as VP of Discovery Research, he oversees the research & discovery efforts of the company. Michael developed CAR Macrophages during his doctoral thesis under the co-mentorship of Saar Gill and Carl June at the University of Pennsylvania. Michael’s scientific expertise is in the intersection of immunology, synthetic biology, cancer immunotherapy, and translational pharmacology. Michael previously earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Sciences in Philadelphia, and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Hans Klingemann, MD, PhD, Vice President, Research & Development, NantKwest, Inc.

Dr. Klingemann has served as the company’s Vice President of Research & Development since joining full time in 2012. He is also the discoverer of the NK-92 cell line and co-founder of the company. Dr. Klingemann received his M.D. from the University of Würzburg Medical School, and his Ph.D. from the University of Marburg, Germany. He received specialty training in Stem Cell Transplantation under Nobel Laureate Dr. ED. Thomas at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Prior to joining NantKwest, Dr. Klingemann served as the Director of the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program and the Director for Hematological Malignancies at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Dr. Klingemann also served as Director of the Section of Bone Marrow Transplant & Cell Therapy at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago where he established the first clinical GMP Cell Therapy facility in the Chicago area. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Klingemann has conducted National Cancer Institute supported research on how to engineer the patient’s immune system to fight cancer, resulting in over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is author and editor of several books on stem cell transplantation. Dr. Klingemann has been selected as Boston’s Top Doctor for the several years and was named by US News and World Report as one of the leading oncologists in the country. He maintains an academic appointment at Tufts University Medical School.

Fahar Merchant, PhD, President, CEO, Medicenna Therapeutics

Dr. Merchant is a 25-year biotech veteran, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Medicenna. Previously he was President and CEO of Protox Therapeutics (TSX; now Sophiris Bio, Nasdaq) where he established a late clinical stage uro-oncology company. In 1992 he co-founded IntelliGene Expressions, Inc., a biologics CDMO, and built it into one of the fastest growing companies in Canada. In 2000, by strategic in-licensing, he co-founded Avicenna Medica, Inc., a clinical stage oncology company that was sold a year later to KS Biomedix (LSE). Fahar was CTO and Director of KS Biomedix until its acquisition by Xenova (Nasdaq and LSE). He has a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from Western University.

Constantine Mitsiades, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Constantine S. Mitsiades received his MD, PhD and a Master's degree in Basic and Clinical Medical Sciences from the University of Athens, School of Medicine, in Greece. He also received a Master's degree in Medical Sciences from Harvard Medical School. Since 2003, he has been a faculty member, initially as Instructor and then as Assistant Professor of Medicine, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. His research work has focused on understanding the cell-autonomous and microenvironment-driven mechanisms of tumor cell resistance to pharmacological and immune based therapies; and on developing novel therapies which neutralize the ability of tumor cells to develop resistance to currently available anti-cancer treatments. For instance, Dr. Mitsiades' studies documented that nonmalignant "accessory" cells of the tumor microenvironment, e.g. bone marrow stromal cells, can cause resistance to several different types of pharmacological therapies as well as immune effector cells, such as NK cells and cytotoxic T-cells. These studies led to further validation of this concept in many other types of cancers. Dr. Mitsiades has published more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (including Cell, Nature Medicine, Cancer Cell, etc.), and in 2014 Dr. Mitsiades was included in the list of the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds" compiled by Thomson-Reuters. Many of his myeloma-oriented studies translated to improved therapies for patients with this disease, including combination regimens (e.g. combinations of proteasome inhibitors with thalidomide derivatives, alkylators, anthracyclines, histone deacetylase inhibitors or Bcl-2 family member inhibitors) which have been FDA-approved, represent a standard-of-care for myeloma or have demonstrated very promising clinical data. Building on this experience, Dr. Mitsiades' research team has applied in recent years the concepts and models from their myeloma research towards the bench-to-bedside development of novel therapies for both advanced hematologic malignancies and metastatic solid tumors.

RJ Tesi, MD, CEO, CMO, INmune Bio

After an academic career as a transplant surgeon, RJ Tesi joined industry to develop novel therapies to manipulate the immune system; first focusing on immunosuppression and autoimmunity within the adaptive immune system and more recently on the innate immune system in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Tesi is the CEO and CMO of INmune Bio, a NASDAQ company (INMB).

Rizwan Romee, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Haploidentical Donor Transplant Program, Oncology/BMT and Leukemia Program, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Romee received his MD from Govt. Medical College Srinagar, India in 2003. He completed his postgraduate training and hematology and oncology fellowship at University of Minnesota in 2011. He did his post-doctoral training in Dr. Jeffrey S. Miller’s laboratory at University of Minnesota followed by advanced BMT fellowship and post-doctoral training in Dr. Todd Fehniger’s laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine in 2012.

Shiladitya Sengupta, PhD, Principle Investigator, Engineering in Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Shiladitya Sengupta received his PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge in 2002, where he worked on the mechanisms underlying hepatocyte growth factor-induced angiogenesis. Shiladitya moved to MIT for his postdoctoral work, where e invented the first layer-by-layer nanoparticle, termed a nanocell, which could be used to target different compartments of a tumor (Nature, 2005) He also studied the role of the cell surface glycome in vasculogenesis. (Circulation, 2009). His early training was in medical pharmacology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He was awarded the Geeta Mital Gold Medal.Dr. Sengupta joined the Brigham and Women's Hospital as a principal investigator and assistant professor of medicine and HST at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-MIT Division of HST. He also served as the co-chair of the BWH Center for Regenerative Therapeutics. Dr. Sengupta was one of the first to use nanotechnology to target oncogenic pathways in cancer (PNAS, 2010). His team discovered a novel mechanism of intercellular communication during metastasis, where cancer cells transfer miRNA to endothelial cells via physical nanotube (Nature Commun. 2015). The team has also described a novel behavior of cancer cells, where the cells switch to a dormant state in response to chemotherapy. Using mathematical models, they described novel strategies of targeting these cell states (Nature Commun. 2015). Recently, they invented a Reporter Nanoparticle that allows real time imaging of an anticancer drug in action, including immunotherapy. (PNAS, 2016)

Dr. Sengupta has been recognized as one of the top 35 innovators of the world under 35 (TR35 award), by Technology Review magazine. He has been awarded the Era of Hope Scholar award by the Department of Defense, ta Coulter Foundation career award, and is a TED fellow. He was a Nehru Scholar at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and is one of the youngest recipients of the Shakuntala Amir Chand Prize from the Indian Council of Medical Research. Dr. Sengupta is a serial entrepreneur, and has co founded Cerulean Pharmaceuticals, Vyome Bioscences, Invictus Oncology, Akamara Therapeutics and Mitra Biotech.

Torsten Tonn, MD, PhD, Group Leader, Research Laboratory Experimental Transfusion Medicine; Professor, Transfusion Medicine, Medical Faculty Carl-Gustav-Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

Torsten Tonn holds the chair for Transfusion Medicine at the Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus, Technical University Dresden (Germany) and is medical director (CEO) of the German Red Cross Blood Donation Service North/East. Prior to this, Torsten Tonn worked 15 years at the department for Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Frankfurt/M, where he was head of the apheresis and cell & gene therapy unit. His scientific focus has been to facilitate the transfer of cell based therapies into clinical applications. He pioneered first in human clinical trials using the off-the-shelf- NK cell line NK-92 and together with Winfried Wels (Frankfurt/Germany) further engineered them to express tumor specific antigen receptors (CARs). Moreover he translated Streptamer-based cell isolation processes for antigen specific donor T lymphocytes into clinical practice. Torsten Tonn served in many committees, among them the cell-based product working party (CPWP) of the CAT (European Medicines Agency, EMA).

Sumithira Vasu, MBBS, Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University Medical Center

I’m an oncologist treating patients with leukemia. I specialize in hematology with a specific focus on acute myeloid leukemias, myelodysplastic syndromes and bone marrow transplantation. Every day, my colleagues and I at the OSUCCC – James collaborate to create targeted therapies for each patient. I serve as an assistant professor in Ohio State’s division of hematology. In addition to teaching, I participate in grant-funded research to better understand specific cancers. I focus on developing pharmacologic and immunologic therapies to pre-emptively manage cancer relapse following bone marrow transplantation. Cancer is complex, but I’m confident our research continues to bring us closer to finding a cure. My work has been featured in medical publications, including Leukemia & Lymphoma, Bone Marrow Transplantation and Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

Hans J. van der Vliet, Medical Oncology, VU University Medical Center, Cancer Center Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Hans van der Vliet (MD, PhD) is a medical oncologist and associate professor at the department of medical oncology of the VU University medical center and Cancer Center Amsterdam in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He studied Medicine at the University of Amsterdam and received his PhD in 2003 (title thesis: Immunoregulation by CD1d-restricted NKT cells). After working as a post-doctoral research fellow in the lab of prof. dr. Mark Exley at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston and in the lab of prof. dr. Marc Bonneville (Institut de Biologie, University of Nantes, France) he now combines clinical work as a medical oncologist with translational research in the field of cancer immunotherapy. He is the principal investigator of various clinical trials and as a clinical cancer research fellow from the Dutch Cancer Society coordinates research that focuses on conserved immunoregulatory and immune effector cell subsets.

Kipp Weiskopf, MD, PhD, Resident Physician, Internal Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Kipp Weiskopf, MD, PhD, is a resident physician in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. He completed his training in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Stanford University. His research focuses on the development of novel cancer immunotherapies, particularly those that activate innate immune cells to attack cancer. In the laboratory of Irving Weissman, MD, he studied the interaction between CD47 and SIRPα, which acts as a myeloid-specific immune checkpoint. He developed novel therapies that disrupt the CD47-SIRPa interaction and stimulate macrophage phagocytosis of cancer cells. He has over 10 patent applications related to this work and was a winner of the 2013 Collegiate Inventors Competition at the US Patent and Trademark Office. He is a co-Founder of Alexo Therapeutics, a biotech company formed to develop these therapeutics. He has also been the recipient of a Winston Churchill Scholarship, an NCI Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Fellowship, the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the Joanna M. Nicolay Melanoma Foundation Research Scholar Award.

Jianhua Yu, PhD, Professor, Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope

Jianhua Yu, Ph.D., has joined City of Hope as a professor in the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. He is a member of the Hematologic Malignancies and Stem Cell Transplantation Institute and founding director of the NK Cell Biology Research Program within the Center for T Cell Immunotherapy of the institute. Yu’s research interests include NK cell biology, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK cells, CAR T cells, oncolytic virus, bispecific antibodies, natural product-based therapeutics and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. His lab focuses on both basic and translational research relevant to developing innovative cellular immunotherapy and oncolytic virotherapy for the treatment of cancers such as multiple myeloma, acute myeloid leukemia and glioblastoma.

Prior to joining City of Hope, Yu was a tenured professor in the Division of Hematology of the College of Medicine and the Comprehensive Cancer Center at The Ohio State University. Yu received his Ph.D. degree from Purdue University in 2003 and then moved to The Ohio State University for his postdoctoral training, where he subsequently accepted a junior faculty position and advanced through the tenure track.