Faculty Biographies

Elias Jabbour, MD, is professor of medicine, Department of Leukemia, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), Houston, Texas. He graduated from the Saint Joseph University School of Medicine, Beirut, 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 assistant professor.

Dr Jabbour is actively involved in research in both acute and chronic forms of leukemia. He was involved in clinical trials that led to the approval of several drugs in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). He actively assisted in developing chemotherapeutic and biologic agents in leukemias and contributed to the development of others. Dr Jabbour has designed more than a dozen clinical trials assessing new combinations for the management of de novo ALL, elderly ALL, and relapsed/refractory disease. Of note, he developed a protocol that has shown significant improvements in survival rates for patients with Philadelphia chromosome-positive ALL. In addition, he developed another innovative treatment approach for these patients by combining blinatumomab, a bispecific monoclonal antibody, with ponatinib, offering a chemotherapy-free regimen that it is hoped will further increase cure rates. Another area on which he focused his research is elderly patients with ALL. The aggressive biology of the disease and elderly patients’ poor tolerance of intensive chemotherapy leads to low survival rates for this patient population.

Dr Jabbour is currently investigating an innovative strategy combining new monoclonal antibodies such as inotuzumab ozogamicin, a conjugated anti-CD22 antibody, and blinatumomab with minimal chemotherapy. If successful, such strategies will likely increase the cure rates of adult patients with ALL to the high level achieved in pediatric patients.

Dr Jabbour has taken an active role in the medical community, participating in numerous scientific meetings. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications (>550 peer-reviewed publications) and abstracts, and serves as a reviewer for many scientific journals. He has received several prestigious awards, among them merit awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2005, 2006, 2007) and the American Society of Hematology (2005, 2006, 2007). He also received several other honors, including the Kimberly Patterson and Shannon Timmons fellowships and the highly coveted Celgene Future Leader in Hematology (2007) and Young Investigator in Hematology (2016) awards.

Maria Sara Felice, MD, PhD, leads the acute leukemia and lymphoma section at Hospital  Garrahan, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is vice director of the fellowship program of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, in pediatric hematology and oncology at Hospital Garrahan. She earned her medical degree at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, Argentina. She completed a 3-year training program in pediatrics at the Hospital de Ninos de Cordoba, followed by 3-year fellowship training in pediatric hematology and oncology at the Hospital de Pediatria Garrahan and 1 year as chief of fellows at that institution. She then became staff physician at the Hospital Garrahan in the acute leukemia and lymphoma section. She earned her PhD from the Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Prof Felice develops research activities in collaboration with national and international groups. She is principal investigator at her hospital for a study between Europe and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States to improve the biologic diagnosis of childhood leukemia, refine the risk-stratification of patients, and help to harmonize the outcome of children with acute leukemia between regions. Additionally, her hospital participates in international protocols for acute leukemia treatment, and she works on the steering committee of the upcoming ALLIC 2020 protocol.

Prof Felice has participated in more than 400 presentations at national and international meetings. She has published more than 70 peer-review papers in specialty journals during her professional career, mainly related to acute leukemia in childhood.

Olga Paola Omaña, MD, is a specialist in internal medicine and hematology at Hematóloga en Clínica del Country y Hospital Militar Central, Bogotá, Colombia. She earned her medical degree from Fundación Universitaria de Ciencias de la Salud in Bogotá. She also earned a master’s degree in stem cell transplantation from Valencia University in Spain. In 2017, she completed a special rotation as an observer at MD Anderson Cancer Center in the Leukemia Department. Dr Omaña has worked in university hospitals since 2017, initially at Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael, and then at Hospital Militar Central, a special regimen center where her focus was benign hematology, lymphoma, leukemia, and autologous stem cell transplant. She later moved on to Clínica del Country, where she currently works as a hematologist. Dr Omaña’s research interest is in acute leukemias and cellular therapy.

Oscar González Ramella was born on October 19, 1967 in the city of Guadalajara Mexico. In 1985 he entered the Faculty of Medicine and graduated in 1991 obtaining the Robins Award for being the highest average of his entire generation. During his undergraduate studies, he made academic stays in Havana, Cuba and in Hamburg, Germany. In 1992 he entered the specialty of Pediatrics at the Hospital Civil de Guadalajara. During this period, he obtained a university scholarship to carry out half of his specialty at the University of Tübingen in Germany. At the end of it, he decided to apply for a scholarship from the German government and was awarded a DAAD scholarship to carry out the subspecialty in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, which ended in 1999. During his specialty, he also entered the Doctorate in Biomedical Sciences with an orientation to Immunology from the same University of Tübingen under the tutelage of Dr. Rupert Handretinger and directed the study of NK Cells. He finished his doctorate in 2000, carried out his last study for a year at the Hospital Valle de Hebrón in Barcelona Spain, where he acquired the super-specialty in Hematopoietic Progenitor Transplants

In 2002 he entered the Civil Hospital of Guadalajara. In March 2003, he performed the first transplants in the West of the country, Dr. González Ramella has performed more than 130 bone marrow transplants with his team.

His lines of research are directed to the immunology of tumors. He is a member of the National System of Researchers by CONCACYT since 2001, he has published multiple articles in high impact indexed reviews, including prestigious journals such as Lancet or BMT. It has more than 10 textbook chapters. He has been awarded several awards, including the First Place of the National Research Award in Pediatric Oncology on two occasions in 2005 and 2013, the Dr. Juan López y López Academic Merit Award. He has collaborated with the St Jude Research Children Hospital as Medical Director for Mexico for more than 10 years. He was President of the Mexican Association of Oncohematology from 2015 to 2016 and President of the Mexican Group of Bone Marrow Transplants 2016 to 2017. He is currently Head of the Hematopoietic Progenitor Transplant Unit of the Civil Hospital and Director of the Onkokid Pediatric Oncology Private Clinic.

Wellington Silva, MD, is a hematologist from the acute leukemia team in the Instituto do Cancer do Estado de Sao Paulo (ICESP), from the University of Sao Paulo. He graduated from the University of Pernambuco School of Medicine. He concluded the Internal Medicine residency at Hospital das Clínicas from the Federal University of Pernambuco. He finished the Fellowship in Hematology and Transfusion Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo in 2016, being hired by USP as an Attending Physician. He is also concluding his Ph.D. course in the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine.

Currently, Dr. Silva is actively involved in the Hematology fellowship training and clinical research in Acute Leukemia. He participates in several clinical trials as a sub-investigator encompassing new agents for acute leukemias, myelodysplastic syndromes, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Dr. Silva has organized all databases on acute leukemia at ICESP, reporting local outcomes and exploring specificities in treating acute leukemia in resource-constrained settings. In addition, he has organized local recommendations for ALL treatment and is currently working on prospective initiatives on ALL for adult patients through cooperation among reference centers. Standardization of genetic testing and asparaginase-based protocols are the primary short-term goals of this protocol.

Dr. Silva has taken an active role in the medical community, participating in numerous local scientific meetings. He has authored or co-authored some publications and abstracts and serves as a reviewer for scientific journals. He has received Abstract Achievement Awards from the American Society of Hematology (2019, 2021). He pursues a teaching and research career in the university, aiming to improve acute leukemia outcomes in his country through research.

Dr Carlos Andrés Portilla Figueroa is a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, and a professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Valle, Colombia. He received his medical degree at the National University of Colombia. Later, he completed his fellowship at the Juan P. Garrahan Hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Dr Portilla Figueroa has published many articles in journals such as Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Pediatric Blood & Cancer, and Revista Gastrohnup. He has participated in many conferences such as the International Society of Paediatric Oncology, World Federation of Hemophilia, and the Congreso Colombiano de Pediatría. He is also a member of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology, the Latin American Society of Pediatric Oncology, and the Colombian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology.

Dr Christina Peters is professor of pediatrics at the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation at St. Anna Children’s Hospital in Vienna, Austria.

Dr Peters is principal investigator of active studies within the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) and International BFM Study Group (I-BFM) for the treatment of pediatric leukemia. Her research interests include allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation in children and adolescents with malignant and non-malignant diseases from related and unrelated donors, infectious and toxic complications after stem cell transplantation, adoptive therapies for hematologic malignancies, and family-oriented rehabilitation for children with life threatening diseases.

Dr Peters chaired the EBMT Pediatric Diseases Working Party between 2008 and 2014. As an expert speaker she has presented on a variety of topics at many symposia, meetings, and seminars. She has authored and co-authored numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Blood, Vox Sanguinis, Leukemia, Haematologica, British Journal of Haematology, and Pediatric Clinics of North America. She acts as a regular reviewer of publications for hematology, pediatric, and leukemia journals. Dr Peters is a member of many professional societies including I-BFM, the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research, the German and Austrian Society of Pediatric Hematology, and the Austrian Gene Therapy Commission. Furthermore, Dr Peters is a member of the advisory board of the Austrian Ministry of Health, the bioethical committee of the Austrian Prime Minister, and member of the European Network of Paediatric Research at the European Medicines Agency.

Bio coming soon.

Dr Sergio A. Giralt is a board-certified hematologist-oncologist. He trained and worked for many years at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he was deputy chair of the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies. In May 2010, he joined the faculty of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) to lead the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Service and served as chief until February 2020.

Dr Giralt’s clinical activity and research focus on stem cell transplantation for patients with blood disorders. His research focus has been on improving treatments for older patients who have acute and chronic leukemia. He and his colleagues pioneered the use of reduced-intensity conditioning regimens for older or more debilitated patients with blood cancers. The development of these less intense and less toxic regimens has allowed transplants to be performed for older patients in a safe and effective manner and has changed the standard of care throughout the world. He plans to continue this research in the context of pioneering T-cell depletion techniques developed at MSKCC. This new approach has dramatically reduced the risk of graft-versus-host disease, a serious complication of donor stem cell transplantation. Disease recurrence after transplantation remains an important cause of treatment failure, and Dr Giralt is a proponent of post-transplant maintenance therapies using a variety of targeted therapies, which they continue to explore at MSKCC.

Dr Giralt is an expert in the treatment of multiple myeloma. His research in this area has focused on developing new conditioning regimens for autologous transplant, as well as developing strategies that will reduce symptom burden and make the treatment so tolerable that it can be done on an outpatient basis. His team’s goal is to deliver the most effective therapies with minimum symptom burden. He led the Myeloma Intergroup Committee of the Blood and Marrow Clinical Trials Network, which developed the current national study looking at the role of consolidation therapy after autologous stem cell transplant for patients with myeloma.

As a strong believer in collaborative science among large academic centers, Dr Giralt has been involved in many multi-institutional projects and until recently chaired the executive board of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. He is also the past chair of the steering committee of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network.

Stephanie Dixon is an Assistant Member in the Division of Cancer Survivorship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (SJCRH) , Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Dixon received her medical degree from the University of Michigan College of Medicine and completed training in a combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. She then pursued a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at SJCRH, followed by an additional year of training in childhood cancer survivorship. Concurrent with her fellowship, she completed a Master’s degree in Public Health with a focus in applied epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Following completion of her training, she joined the faculty at SJCRH in the Division of Cancer Survivorship where she specializes in the care of childhood cancer survivors as well as children newly diagnosed with Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Dr. Dixon is actively involved in clinical research focused on late health outcomes after childhood cancer treatment including studies focused on late mortality and chronic health conditions in survivors as well as targeted interventions to prevent or mitigate late-effects of cancer therapy.