Scientific Advisory Board

Anthony Letai, MD, PhD
Co-founder and Chairman of SAB
Dr. Letai is Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Research Center. He is a leading expert in Bcl-2 family protein biology with emphasis on their role in hematological malignancies, and is an investigator on several clinical hematology oncology studies. Dr. Letai is the inventor of Eutropics's oncology diagnostics technology. Dr. Letai received his BA in physics from Princeton University, M.D. and, Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, He completed his medical residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, medical Fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare, and research fellowship in the laboratory of the noted early pioneer of the Bcl-2 field, Stanley Korsmeyer at Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Gerhard Wagner, PhD
Professor Wagner is the Elkan Blout Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wagner is a recognized world expert on structural characterization for proteins and multiprotein complexes, employing NMR spectroscopic methodology, mathematical models, and biological techniques. Dr. Wagner’s lab is considered an authority on applying NMR spectroscopy to the elucidation of protein structure, protein-protein interactions and small molecule screening. In addition, the lab is particularly expert in NMR spectroscopy-based analysis of larger proteins (> 35 - 40 kDa), and has published several studies for improving and optimizing NMR spectroscopic methods for studying this class of polypeptides. Moreover, he has championed the use of NMR spectroscopy for characterizing the perturbations that occur following protein-protein or protein-nucleic acid associations, as well as in-cell NMR spectroscopy. He has explored structure/function aspects for protein constituents  of eukaryotic protein translation, apoptosis, T-cells, and various other cellular processes.

Prof. Wagner earned his PhD from the ETH in Zurich, and his undergraduate degree in Physics from the Technical University in Munich.

Michael Andreeff, MD, PhD
Professor Andreeff is the Chief of Molecular Hematology and Therapeutics, Paul and Mary Haas Chair in Genetics, MD Anderson Cancer Research Center, University of Texas. He is a renowned expert in pre-clinical and clinical studies of therapies for hematological disease, and most notably Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  His approaches include the development of cytokine-chemotherapy combinations; the development of Multiple Drug Resistance-blocking strategies; in the laboratory and clinical trials; the study of cell proliferation in vivo with modified nucleotides; a comprehensive analysis of pathways of cell proliferation and apoptosis in AML patients during and after induction chemotherapy; and the development of strategies to modulate apoptotic pathways in leukemias utilizing gene therapy, anti-sense oligonucleotides, retinoids and Bcl-2 family modulating small molecules.
Dr. Andreeff received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Heidelberg where he completed his residencies in surgery, medicine, and gynecology. He completed fellowships in Hematology Oncology at the University of Mainz Medical School and at Memorial Hospital in New York.

Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, PhD
Professor Anderson is the Chief, Division of Hematological Neoplasia, the Director of the James Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, and the Kraft Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute. He earned his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1977 and trained in internal medicine at John's Hopkins Hospital. Thereafter he completed training in hematology, medical oncology and tumor immunology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. Anderson serves as Vice Chair of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine at DFCI. He also serves as Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Multiple Myeloma Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, is a Cancer and Leukemia Group B Principal Investigator, serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the International Myeloma Foundation, and sits on the Board of Directors and serves as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and of the Leadership Committee of the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium. Dr. Anderson is a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Research Scientist. His numerous awards include the 2001 Charles C. Lund Award of the American Red Cross Blood Services, the 2003 Waldenstrom’s Award for research in plasma cell dyscrasias, and the 2004 Johnson & Johnson Focused Giving Award for Setting New Directions in Science and Technology.

Alan D’Andrea, MD
Dr. D’Andrea is the Alvan T. and Viola D. Fuller American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Research Center where he is also scientific director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory. Dr. D'Andrea obtained his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and completed a Pediatric Residency training at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He performed his post-doctoral research training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA. At that time he and his collaborators cloned the gene for the Erythropoietin Receptor, a major regulator of normal human blood cell formation. After completing his research training, Dr. D'Andrea joined the Harvard Medical School Faculty. Dr. D'Andrea is internationally known for his research in the fields of human blood cell formation and cancer susceptibility. He directs a laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is the Co-Director of the Clinical Gene Therapy Center at Children's Hospital, Boston. Dr. D'Andrea is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award , the American Academy of Pediatrics Award for Excellence in Research , and the Stohlman Scholar Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

James Bradner, MD
Dr. Bradner is a chemical biologist and hematologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.  He is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Chicago-Pritzker School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School-Health Sciences and Technology.  He completed internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, followed by Hematology and Medical Oncology training in the combined Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care Fellowship Program.  He completed post-doctoral research training in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.  In 2009, he joined the research faculty of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Bradner is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute and affiliated faculty in the Chemical Biology Program of Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Bradner attends on the Stem Cell Transplant and Hematologic Malignancies Services.  He is a member of the American Society of Hematology and the American Chemical Society and is board-certified in Hematology, Oncology and Internal Medicine.  The Bradner laboratory studies gene regulation using small molecules as probes.  A principal focus of the Bradner laboratory concerns the discovery and optimization of small-molecule modulators of gene regulatory pathways governing cellular identity.