Research

The Adult Blood & Marrow Transplantation (BMT) Program performs world class research, over 200 transplants per year, and nearly half a dozen bench-to-bedside clinical trials. Our researchers continue to maintain a prominent presence at national meetings, including the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Center for International BMT Research, the American Society of Hematology, and the BMT Clinical Trials Network. The Program has piloted an Ambulatory Treatment Center (ATC) which concentrated care of early post-transplant for autologous patients through day 30 and through day 100 for allogeneic patients. This has impacted outcomes with a reduction in readmission rate.

Blood & Marrow Transplant Faculty

• Sarah Anand, MD
• Dale Bixby, MD, PhD
• Patrick Burke, MD
• Monalisa Ghosh, MD
• Darren King, MD
• John Magenau, MD
• Brian Parkin, MD
• Attaphol Pawarode, MD
• Mary M. Riwes, DO 

Adjunct Stem Cell Research Faculty

• Jonathan Golob, MD, PhD (Respiratory)
• Randall Sung, MD (Solid Organ Transplant)

We have over 10 faculty members focused on breast cancer in the Division of Hematology and Oncology. Academic interests span the spectrum of disease, including risk and prevention, adjuvant systemic therapy, new drug development, tumor biomarker generation and evaluation, quality of life studies, and health sciences research.

Breast Oncology Faculty

• Monika Burness, MD
• Erin Cobain, MD
• Jennifer Griggs, MD, MPH, FASCO, FACP
• Daniel Hayes, MD, FASCO, FACP
• N. Lynn Henry, MD, PhD
• Kathleen Kemmer, MD
• Sofia Merajver, MD, PhD
• Aki Morikawa, MD, PhD
• James Rae, PhD
• Anne Schott, MD
• Jeffrey Smerage, MD, PhD
• Catherine Van Poznak, MD
• Max Wicha, MD

Our program faculty are working on drug discovery, and innovations in disease detection and monitoring.

Drug & Technology Development Faculty

• Muneesh Tewari, MD, PhD
• Shaomeng Wang, PhD

The Multidisciplinary Endocrine Oncology Clinic is one of only a few medical centers in the United States recognized as an international center of excellence for the treatment of adrenal cancer. It is also designated as a Michigan Medicine Destination Center.

Endocrine Oncology Faculty

• Francis Worden, MD

This past year brought many changes to the Phase I program. There has been a significant increase in patients being referred to open slots in accruing Phase I clinical trials.

Experimental Therapeutics Faculty

• Rashmi Chugh, MD
• Tycel Phillips, MD
• Bryan Schneider, MD
• David Smith, MD
• Moshe Talpaz, MD

Seven division faculty clinicians and researchers, working with colleagues across other disciplines, are part of the Gastrointestinal (GI) Oncology Program. The program is focused on the care and treatment of patients with colorectal, pancreatic, gastric, and liver malignancies. The research program is just as collaborative as the clinical program. It includes more than 40 researchers from 18 departments who have made significant strides in researching GI cancers. Their goal has been focused upon what biologic, genetic, and/or molecular processes have to take place to give rise to the development of GI cancer. In 2010, the program received a Gastrointestinal Oncology Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant from NIH. The overall goal of this SPORE is to reduce mortality associated with GI cancers, specifically colorectal and pancreatic cancers. This goal will be achieved through identifying and developing interventions to modify molecular based common cancer-associated carcinogenesis and cancer progression processes and linking them to human investigations.

GI Oncology Faculty

• Dean Brenner, MD
• Grace Chen, MD, PhD
• John Krauss, MD
• Oxana Crysler, MD, MHS
• Vaibhav Sahai, MD, MS
• Christine Veenstra, MD
• Mark Zalupski, MD

The Michigan Medicine Rogel Cancer Center has a NIH SPORE for Prostate Cancer which provides research support for a substantial amount of translational research conducted by faculty from multiple disciplines: Urology, Surgery, Radiation Oncology, and Pathology.

GU Oncology Faculty

• Ajjai Alva, MD
• Megan Caram, MD
• Phillip Palmbos, MD, PhD
• Bruce Redman, DO
• David Smith, MD

The Michigan Medicine Rogel Cancer Center has a NIH SPORE for Head and Neck (H&N) cancer which strengthens the program by providing support for exciting new research projects. Head and neck cancer researchers work closely with colleagues across other disciplines: otolaryngology, radiation oncology, and speech pathology. Our thoracic oncology faculty focus on conducting research in close collaboration with colleagues in thoracic surgery, pulmonary, gastroenterology, radiology, and pathology. Dr. Nithya Ramnath conducts a clinical research program at the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System (VAAAHS).

H&N and Thoracic Oncology Faculty

• Gregory Kalemkerian, MD
• Nithya Ramnath, MD
• Bryan Schneider, MD
• Susan Urba, MD
• Francis Worden, MD

The Hematologic Malignancies group have very active programs in clinical research and translational/basic research. Our group currently has eight non-therapeutic studies and 41 therapeutic studies open for hematologic malignancies, including SWOG and Phase I studies. We are particularly focused on opening more investigator-initiated studies, and currently have three that are active and five that are approved or pending. Several of our investigators (Drs. Phillips, Burke, Ye, Devata, and Wilcox) have submitted Letters of Intent for original clinical trial concepts. We also participate in numerous industry-sponsored clinical studies of cutting-edge combination therapies and molecularly targeted drugs. Our group has initiated multiple collaborative studies with University colleagues, as well as external collaborators. Our scientific efforts have led to five active NIH R01 awards.

Hematology Faculty

• Asra Ahmed, MD
• Dale Bixby, MD, PhD
• Paula Bockenstedt, MD
• Patrick Burke, MD
• Erica Campagnaro, MD
• Shannon Carty, MD
• Mark Chiang, MD, PhD
• Alice Cusick, MD
• Scott Gitlin, MD
• Mark Kaminski, MD
• Rami Khoriaty, MD
• Qing Li, MD, PhD
• Sami Malek, MD
• Sang Min, MD
• Tycel Phillips, MD
• Albert Quiery, Jr., MD
• Samuel Silver, MD, PhD, FACP, FAHA, FASCO
• Suman Sood, MD
• Moshe Talpaz, MD
• Ryan Wilcox, MD, PhD
• Christine (Jing) Ye, MD, MSc

The Melanoma Multidisciplinary Clinic, designated as the NCI’s Midwest referral center, offers patients efficient and expedited care regardless of their disease stage. The Skin Cancer Program was the first Destination Center at Michigan Medicine. Our faculty work with colleagues across 15 departments to provide outstanding patient care and offer novel therapeutic treatments for patients with melanoma.

Melanoma Faculty

• Leslie Fecher, MD
• Christopher Lao, MD, MPH
• Bruce Redman, DO

Michigan Medicine is the coordinating center, led by Ajjai Alva, MBBS, for the Prostate Cancer Precision Medicine Multi-Institutional Collaborative Effort (PROMISE) Consortium. The Consortium is made up of 15 of the leading prostate cancer centers across the country, and was formed to develop a repository of real world clinical-genomic data in order to better understand the interplay between molecular features, prognosis, and response to prostate cancer therapies.

The Division of Hematology and Oncology has a strong cadre of faculty devoted to sarcoma, who specialize in the care of patients with sarcomas as well as conducting clinical research to develop novel therapeutic treatment options. The Sarcoma Survivorship Clinic was opened to address the unique medical and psychosocial needs of young adult and adult sarcoma survivors. This sarcoma survivorship program is a unique coordination of care between pediatric and adult sarcoma providers as well as across medical subspecialties. Our aim is to prevent morbidity/lethality of chronic medical conditions and to improve the quality of life in pediatric, adolescent, young adult, and older adult survivors.

Sarcoma Faculty

• Laurence Baker, DO
• Rashmi Chugh, MD
• Scott Schuetze, MD, PhD

The Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System (VAAAHS) Hematology & Oncology Section operates in close partnership with the Division of Hematology & Oncology at the University of Michigan in all realms of their shared missions, with clinical services at the VAAAHS centered around Oncology and Hematology outpatient clinics and inpatient consultative services. The section provides the programmatic foundation and leadership for the Multidisciplinary Cancer Program at the VAAAHS, which this year again received full accreditation from the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer, with full commendation in all seven available categories. The VAAAHS is the largest single supporter of the Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program, enabling very diverse educational experiences characterized by immersive patient care and research experiences. The section is actively developing its clinical research capabilities and options, as it expands in response to enormous growth in patients coming from throughout Michigan and neighboring states. The faculty are engaged in diverse research pursuits including clinical, translational, outcomes, and laboratory research.

Veterans Affairs Faculty

• Jon Oscherwitz, MD
• Brian Parkin, MD
• Nithya Ramnath, MD