Faculty Biographies

Dr Elias Jabbour is a professor of medicine in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston, where he also leads the acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) program. He graduated from the Saint Joseph University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine, Lebanon, and joined the Hotel Dieu de France University Hospital as a resident. He pursued a fellowship in hematology-oncology at the Gustave Roussy Institute, France. In 2003, he joined MDACC as a fellow in the Department of Hematology/Leukemia and Stem Cell Transplantation. He later joined the faculty in the Leukemia Department as an assistant professor.

Dr Jabbour is actively involved in developmental therapeutics research in leukemia. Over the past 5 years, he has assisted in developing chemotherapeutic and biologic agents in leukemias and contributed to the development of others. These include Hyper-CVAD + ofatumumab in ALL, clofarabine in myeloid malignancies, hypomethylating agents in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes, tyrosine kinase therapy in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), and triplet therapy in AML. This research has also provided insight into the biology of leukemias, and Dr Jabbour has extensively addressed the question of resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors and analyzed the outcomes of these patients.

Dr Jabbour was actively associated with frontline studies of nilotinib and dasatinib, which resulted in US Food and Drug Administration approval of these agents for frontline CML therapy in 2010. He is leading efforts to test triplet therapy in AML (nucleoside analogs + anthracyclines + cytarabine). The interim results from this randomized trial show a significant improvement in outcome for patients who receive the nucleoside analog clofarabine and may change the standard of care for management of AML. Furthermore, he is currently investigating the benefit of adding humanized monoclonal antibody for the treatment of patients with ALL (ofatumumab and Hyper-CVAD) and collaborating in the development of monoclonal antibody studies in adult ALL. Finally, Dr Jabbour has authored or co-authored hundreds of peer-reviewed medical publications and has served on the editorials board of several scientific journals.

Prof Josep-Maria Ribera is a practicing physician and researcher. He is a senior consultant of the Clinical Hematology Department for the Catalan Institute of Oncology and the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Badalona, Spain. He joined the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute at its creation and leads the acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) research group. After gaining his medical degree, he specialized in hematology at the Hospital Clínic Barcelona before completing his PhD in the Clinical Hematology Department.

Prof Ribera has been a full professor of medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) since 2003. He teaches postgraduate courses at UAB, the University of Barcelona, the Universidad Internacional Menéndez y Pelayo, and the Escuela Nacional de Sanidad, and he carries out other varied teaching duties.

Prof Ribera’s work and publications have made him well-known internationally. He is a member of the Steering Committee for ALL of the European LeukemiaNet and the European Working Group for Adult ALL. His research focuses on the study of new treatment approaches and prognostic factors in adult ALL, and he collaborates closely with the Lymphoma Research Group in the study of therapy and prognosis in human immunodeficiency virus-related lymphomas. He has authored or co-authored more than 485 published clinical papers and 100 book chapters on hematology, oncology, and internal medicine.

Dr Nicolas Boissel is head of the adolescent and young adult unit in the Department of Haematology at Hôpital Saint-Louis and a professor of medicine at the Université Paris Cité, France. He earned his PhD at Hôpital Saint-Louis and his MD at the Université Paris Diderot.

Dr Boissel’s work focuses on the treatment of bone marrow disorders, including acute leukemia, lymphoma, and bone marrow failure, with a special emphasis on comprehensive care for adolescents and young adults. He chairs the French, Swiss, and Belgian Group for Research on Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

Dr Boissel’s clinical research interests include the use of new oncogenic markers and minimal residual disease to guide therapeutic stratification in acute leukemia, as well as the development of immunotherapy approaches in this field.

Dr Nicola Gökbuget has worked at the University Hospital Frankfurt, Germany, for more than 25 years, and as senior physician she heads the study center of the Department of Medicine II. She is task force director for clinical trials of the University Cancer Center and principal investigator of the Frankfurt Cancer Institute. She serves as managing director of central clinical trial coordination for Goethe University and University Hospital.

Dr Gökbuget is a coordinating or principal investigator of numerous academic or industry-sponsored trials in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and related diseases such as lymphoblastic lymphoma or Burkitt lymphoma. For more than 20 years, she has served as chair of the German Multicenter Study Group for ALL (GMALL), with more than 140 participating hospitals across Germany. She founded and established a national registry for ALL with an associated biobank, and she has chaired the European Hematology Association Scientific Working Group for ALL for the past 3 years. Dr Gökbuget is a founding member and board member of the German Network for Acute and Chronic Leukemias and the European Leukemia Network (ELN). She is also a founding member of the ELN Working Group for Adult ALL and is corresponding author of the ELN guidelines for adult ALL.