We extend our deepest thanks for your generosity in supporting Lurie Children’s Division of Hematology, Oncology, Neuro-Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation. Philanthropy has been the cornerstone of the division’s ongoing growth and success. Your support has enabled our team to continue conducting cutting-edge clinical and translational research, expand and elevate our clinical services and maintain the highest standards for education of future leaders within the field. 

We are pleased to provide this update on activities and accomplishments of the past year. With your partnership, we will continue to accelerate discoveries and revolutionize care so that every child can survive their diagnosis and go on to thrive.

As the division enters this new phase of leadership, there is much work to be done to ensure all young people with cancer and blood disorders survive their illness and achieve a high quality of life. Dr. Liem is committed to capitalizing on our current strengths and investing in new opportunities that will further define our program as a nationally recognized center of excellence for clinical care, scientific discovery, training and advocacy. His strategic vision is to improve the health of children through:

• delivering data-driven, patient-centered clinical care
• fostering an environment of research discovery among faculty and trainees at all levels across the division
• training the next generation of forward-thinking clinicians and investigators
• ensuring each component of our mission is vetted through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion

Taking the critical steps required to achieve these goals will ensure that the division is able to meet the demands of a growing clinical enterprise and strengthen our academic mission for the benefit of young people today and in the future.

The health and well-being of young people battling cancer and blood disorders is dependent on timely access to advanced medical care and cutting-edge therapies. As the division continues to experience increasing patient volumes, it is essential to build on our strong foundation of clinical and research expertise through the recruitment of new faculty. This will ensure our ability to provide seamless, coordinated services across the care continuum. Since the start of this year, we have recruited several accomplished physician-scientists with expertise spanning multiple specialties. They include:

Hematology

• John Fargo, DO, from Akron Children’s Hospital. Dr. Fargo has an interest in hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, clotting disorders, as well as clinical informatics and quality and safety initiatives.

Neuro-Oncology

• Miriam Bornhorst, MD, will join our team in January 2024 from Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Bornhorst’s areas of expertise include neurofibromatosis, experimental therapeutics for brain tumor treatment in children with neurofibromatosis, cancer predisposition to brain tumors and genomic profiling of brain tumors.

Oncology

• Sara Zarnegar-Lumley, MD, from Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. Dr. Zarnegar-Lumley’s work focuses on the development of early phase therapeutic clinical trials for children with leukemia/lymphoma, cancer predisposition syndromes and fertility preservation for children cancer undergoing therapy.

Stem Cell Transplantation

• Hannah Lust, MD, joined our team in July after completing a three-year Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation fellowship followed by advanced training in stem cell transplantation at Lurie Children’s. Dr. Lust has an interest in stem cell transplantation for primary immune deficiencies.
• Kevin McNerney, MD, from John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. A specialist in blood and marrow transplantation and cancer immunotherapy, Dr. McNerney has expertise in outcomes and toxicities related to cellular immunotherapies, including CAR T-cell therapy, used for children with cancer.
• Veronika Polishchuk, MD, from Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Polishchuk has an interest in general stem cell transplantation, apheresis, supportive therapies and guidelines for children undergoing cancer therapy, as well as quality improvement and safety initiatives.

To complement our clinical services, Dr. Liem is also committed to building the division’s capacity to lead cutting-edge research through the recruitment of an Associate Division Head of Research as well as a critical mass of both junior and mid-career physician-scientists and other investigators. The individuals we seek to attract will have a track record and vision for discovery spanning the spectrum of basic, clinical and translational sciences.

Research is key to providing better care, improved outcomes and a higher quality of life for children with cancer and blood disorders. Through clinical trials and translational research, Lurie Children’s is at the forefront of developing innovative treatments and a deeper understanding of these diseases at the most basic level. The division has a strong presence in all major research consortia within the fields of hematology, oncology, neuro-oncology and stem cell transplantation, including the Children’s Oncology Group, Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia & Lymphoma and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, among others. Our robust research infrastructure currently supports over 200 clinical trials and studies.  Highlights of studies now underway include:

Neuro-oncology

• Interim section head and the Max Lacewell Endowed Brain Tumor Research Scholar Angela Waanders, MD, MPH, continues to do outstanding work in data science and informatics related to brain tumors. Dr. Waanders recently received an award from the Minderoo Foundation to help build an international pediatric high-grade glioma database that will harmonize clinical data being collected through different research efforts across the three countries. Additionally, she received a Malnati Pediatric Research Award in collaboration with Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine to build machine learning tools and leverage artificial intelligence to support clinical decision making for patients with brain tumors.

•  Ashley Plant-Fox, MD, A.M. Khokhar Research Scholar, is leading efforts to develop early phase clinical trials that will provide new treatment options and renewed hope for young people with aggressive diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) tumors. The phase I/II rHSC-DIPGVax trial developed by Dr. Plant-Fox has made significant progress and continues to enroll more participants. This novel vaccine study has attracted patients from across the United States. To date, more than 35 have been screened for eligibility and 7 have been enrolled. Dr. Plant-Fox recently started the next arm of the study, which will combine the vaccine with checkpoint blockade, another immunotherapy that will hopefully help prevent the tumor from being able to stop the immune response generated by the vaccine. This arm has a waitlist and will likely be completed by early next year. Study participants have tolerated the vaccine safely and biologic correlates have shown robust immune response in the blood.

• David Walterhouse, MD, Section Head and Richard A. Perritt, MD Professorship in Cancer and Blood Disorders, is collaborating with pediatric surgeon Timothy Lautz, MD, on a novel study using fluorescence guided surgery to identify and successfully resect small pulmonary nodules and ensure negative tumor margins. They helped to author a consensus paper that appeared in the journal Cancer Medicine earlier this year https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36744538/.

Hematology

• Sherif Badawy, MD, is pursuing a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute NHLBI to evaluate the relationship between health-related quality of life and medication adherence in young people with sickle cell disease (SCD). He is also developing a novel user-centered mobile health tool to improve medication adherence (https://reporter.nih.gov/search/lWWLeaJTYke6apb4ifVwGg/project-details/10580737).

• In addition, Dr. Badawy is the site principal investigator (PI) for a new trial that leverages video directly observed therapy (VDOT) strategies to improve medication (hydroxyurea) adherence in young people with sickle cell disease. VDOT is an electronic hydroxyurea adherence-promoting strategy delivered using smartphones and includes reminder alerts, video directly observed therapy by trained observers and feedback from the observers to encourage adherence. This promising intervention has significant public health relevance as youth with SCD are underserved and remain at high risk for adverse acute and long-term health outcomes. (https://reporter.nih.gov/search/-OVZkLp3f02An_lM0g6OwQ/project-details/10698769).

• Rukhmi Bhat, MD, is the site PI for a novel NIH study evaluating exercise intolerance and functional capacity in children who have had a deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism (https://reporter.nih.gov/search/CUmK1wVFmkC5QD4kR9YQZw/project-details/10674002).

• Robert Liem, MD, MS, continues his NIH-funded work in the areas of exercise physiology and exercise responses in children with sickle cell disease. His multicenter study strives to better understand the impact of exercise intensity on inflammatory and airway responses with the goal of developing safe, evidence-driven exercise guidelines for this population (https://reporter.nih.gov/search/X5hu0hb8Nk-AS99ZhGM8Hg/project-details/10141282). In another project, Dr. Liem is the site PI for a multicenter study that examines the development of a novel exercise testing strategy to assess cardiopulmonary fitness and test the approach in children with sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis (https://reporter.nih.gov/search/rJuGGV4TSU-W2cfUdbm56w/project-details/10450177).

Stem Cell Transplantation

• Section Head Sonali Chaudhury, MD, is the site PI for a transformational Phase 2 gene-editing clinical trial for children and adults with SCD led by Boston Children’s Hospital induces fetal hemoglobin to treat sickle cell disease. The treatment reduces expression of the gene that controls the amount of fetal hemoglobin (HbF). This could increase the amount of HbF while decreasing the amount of sickle hemoglobin in red blood cells, potentially leading to a complete functional cure from severe vaso-occlusive events and other complications in patients with severe sickle cell disease.

• Kevin McNerney, MD, and Lily Zeng, MD, are pursuing research in the areas of immunotherapies and cellular therapies (CAR-T cell therapy). Dr. McNerney’s work centers around evaluating toxicities related to CAR-T therapy as well as the role of stem cell transplantation in treatment protocols involving CAR-T. He currently serves as sub-investigator on several clinical trials and is co-leading efforts to investigate inflammatory toxicities with two multi-institutional consortia focused on CAR-T cell therapy for hematologic malignancies. Dr. Zeng is an advanced fourth year fellow in stem cell transplantation who does work on therapeutic resistance/immune escape mechanisms in CAR-T cell therapy. She was just awarded a Hyundai Hope on Wheels Scholars grant to support her work.

The division has a long and successful record of training the next generation of clinicians and investigators who are dedicated to optimizing care and promoting innovation in the fields of pediatric hematology, oncology and stem cell transplantation. Trainees in our Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation Fellowship program learn to evaluate and treat children and young adults with a wide range of complex diseases. They also develop skills as productive investigators by participating in clinical and/or laboratory-based research. After completing their fellowship, many top trainees have been recruited to faculty positions at Lurie Children’s or gone on to other leading academic programs across the nation. 

Currently, our highly ranked program welcomes three new first year fellows each year, for a total of nine fellows in training at any given time. However, our growing clinical volumes and strong training experience make us well-positioned to consider increasing our fellowship program to 4 slots annually. In addition to actively recruiting candidates for our three ongoing fellowship positions, we have identified a candidate who will pursue a unique combined fellowship in Hematology/Oncology and Critical Care Medicine beginning in July 2024 and are seeking approval from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to permanently add a fourth slot to our fellowship program going forward. Training the next generation of leaders in the field will help ensure that young people in Chicago and elsewhere receive expert care from physician-scientists who will challenge conventional approaches and lead tomorrow's breakthroughs. 

We are pleased to introduce you to our newest class of fellows who joined our program this past July: