(Nov. 20, 2007) Several Cancer Center researchers and University of Minnesota colleagues will be among the presenters at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in Atlanta, December 8-12, 2007.

If you or someone from your laboratory is giving an oral or poster presentation at ASH, and you have not been listed yet, please e-mail Gina Kennedy, kenne069@umn.edu, with your name, title and/or lab affiliation, and the title of your presentation to be included on the list and in a future edition of Update.

Education Spotlight Session

Mark T. Reding, M.D., is co-chair of "Spotlight on Thrombosis Prevention and Management in High-Risk Clinical Situations ('Riding the Tiger')"

Education Program

Vicki A. Morrison, M.D., will present "Infectious Complications in Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia" during the "Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia" session.

Marcie Tomblyn, M.D., M.S., will present "Are There Circumstances in which Phase II Study Results Should Be Practice-Changing?" during the "Pitfalls of Clinical Trials and Their Interpretation" session.

Daniel Weisdorf, M.D., is the chair of the "Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant" session; he will present "GVHD: The Nuts and Bolts of Patient Management" at the session.

Scientific Program

Jeffrey Miller, M.D., will present "The Role of Natural Killer Cells in Transplantation Therapies" during the Scientific Committee on Transplantation Biology's "Natural Killer Cells: Biology and Therapy" session.

Oral Presentations

Rachel Bergerson, graduate student, Largaespada lab, "Novel Mll-AF9 cooperating genes identified in a leukemogenesis screen using retroviral mutagenesis"

Frank Cichocki, Miller lab, "STAT5 overexpression enhances killer immunoglobulin receptor (KIR) expression in developing NK dells and is associated with a loss of reverse transcription from the proximal KIR promoter"

Sarah Cooley, M.D., Assistant Professor, Medicine HOT, "Activating KIR (B Haplotype) in unrelated donors improves disease-free survival after HLA-matched and mismatched allogeneic transplantation for acute myeloid leukemia: Implications for donor selection using KIR genotyping"

Milena Elimelakh, M.D., Assistant Professor, Medicine HOT, "Incidence and outcomes of immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT)"

Lisa Jasperson, Blazar lab, "Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase is a critical regulator of acute GVHD"

Navneet S. Majhail, M.D., M.S., Assistant Professor, Medicine HOT, "Reduced intensity allogeneic transplantation in patients older than 55 years: Unrelated umbilical cord blood is safe and effective for patients without a matched related donor"

Maki Shindo, M.D., Ph.D., Chen lab, Pediatric BMT, "Toll-like receptor agonists induce immunogeneicity and apoptosis of acute myeloid leukemia cells"

Jakub Tolar, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Pediatric H/O/BMT, "Induction of skin repair mechanism by bone marrow derived SLAM family receptor enriched cells in murine epidermolysis bullosa" and "Glycosaminoglycans as anticoagulants in mucopolysaccharidosis Type I (MPS I)"

Michael Verneris, M.D., Assistant Professor, Pediatric H/O/BMT, "Umbilical cord blood T cells express the natural cytotoxicity receptors, NKp30, NKp44 and Nkp46 after IL-15 stimulation, but only NKp30 is functional"

Poster Presentations

K. Scott Baker, M.D., Associate Professor, Pediatric H/O/BMT, "Clinical results: Alternative donor transplantation-matched unrelated donors and haploidentical transplants"

Wei Chen, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Pediatric BMT, "The indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase pathway is essential for human plasmacytoid dendritic cell-induced adaptive T regulatory cell generation"

Robert Godal, M.D., Miller lab, "Killer immunoglobulin receptor (KIR) negative NK cells exhibit potent alloreactivity against primary leukemia targets when interrupting MHC class I interactions through NKG2A blockade"

Bartsoz Grzywacz, M.D., Verneris lab, "Stromal cells support a myeloid pathway of human NK cell differentiation"

Sonja Johnson, LeBien lab, "CD127 expression confers enhanced survival on human B-lineage cells: Implications for the role of IL-7 signaling in human B lymphopoiesis." (Johnson is also a recipient of an ASH travel award for this meeting.)

Won-Il Kim, graduate student, Largaespada lab, "Continued expression of the NRAS(G12V) oncogene is required for the maintenance of acute myeloid leukemia induced in cooperation with MLL-AF9." (Kim is also a recipient of an ASH travel award for this meeting.)

Ashish Kumar, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Pediatric H/O/BMT, "MEIS1 Is a Promising New Target for Leukemia Therapy"

Cary Martinez, M.D., Pediatric BMT Fellow, "GD2+ selected mesenchymal stromal cells demonstrate a more robust proliferation and differentiation potential compared to unselected cells"

Angie Smith, M.D., Fellow, Pediatric BMT, "Reversible bony changes after treatment with bevacizumab in a child with cutaneovisceral angiomatosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome: A case report and review of the literature"

Jakub Tolar, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Pediatric H/O/BMT, "Dyskeratosis congenita: Low regimen-related toxicity following hematopoietic cell transplantation using a reduced intensity conditioning regimen" and "Glycosaminoglycans as anticoagulants in mucopolysaccharidosis Type I (MPS I)" and "Brain sparing conditioning regimen and umbilical cord blood transplantation for inherited high risk neurologic metabolic diseases"

Petter Woll, Kaufman lab, "NK cells derived from human embryonic stem cells demonstrate more effective in vivo clearance of xenografted human tumor cells compared to NK cells derived from cord blood"

Bin Yin, Ph.D., Largaespada lab, "Bcl11a causes p21Cip1 down-regulation and transplantable leukemia in Nf1-deficient mice"