Faculty Biographies
August 27–28, 2025, Webinar
Elias Jabbour, MD
MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
Dr Elias Jabbour 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.
Naval Daver, MD
MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA
Dr Naval Daver is an associate professor and director of the Leukemia Research Alliance Program in the Department of Leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston, TX. He is a clinical investigator with a focus on molecular and immune therapies in AML and myeloid disease, and is principal investigator on more than 25 ongoing institutional, national, and international clinical trials in these diseases. These trials focus on developing a personalized therapy approach by targeting specific mutations or immune pathways expressed by patients with AML, evaluating novel combinations of targeted, immune, and cytotoxic agents, and identifying and overcoming mechanisms of resistance. He is especially interested in developing monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, immune checkpoint and vaccine-based approaches, as well as targeted and apoptotic therapies in AML, and he is leading a number of these trials at MDACC. Dr Daver has published over 240 peer-reviewed manuscripts and is on the editorial board of numerous hematology journals.
Ibrahim Aldoss, MD
City of Hope, Duarte, CA, USA
Dr Ibrahim Aldoss is an associate clinical professor in the Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at City of Hope in Duarte, CA, and an active member of Gehr Family Center Leukemia. He is also co-director of the Hematology Tissue Bank at City of Hope and co-director of the Leukemia Registry. He earned his medical degree from Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irbid. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Creighton University in Omaha, NE, before joining the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) to pursue a fellowship in hematology-oncology. While at USC, he was chosen to be chief of hematology fellows and served as a clinical instructor. In 2014, he joined City of Hope as a bone marrow transplantation fellow.
Dr Aldoss’ primary research focus is on optimizing treatment outcomes of younger adults with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), improving immunotherapies in ALL, understanding methods of resistance, identifying alternate promising targets in ALL beyond CD19, improving transplant outcomes in ALL, and understanding the genetics and pathogenesis of ALL.
Dr Aldoss has published over 100 articles in the peer-reviewed literature, and he has presented his research work at many international meetings. He is the principal investigator on several novel therapies in acute leukemias.
Roberta Demichelis, MD
Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico
Dr Roberta Demichelis is an assistant professor in the Department of Hematology/Oncology at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán (INCMNSZ) in Mexico City. She graduated from the Universidad Anáhuac School of Medicine, then completed her residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology at INCMNSZ. She later joined the faculty and currently serves as the Acute Leukemia Service coordinator.
Dr Demichelis is involved in clinical research with a focus on acute leukemia. She is a founding member and coordinator of the academic and scientific activities of the Acute Leukemia Working Group of the Mexican Association for the Study of Hematology (Agrupación Mexicana para el Estudio de la Hematología). The group conducts prospective multicentric studies focused on characterizing Mexican patients with acute leukemia and improving outcomes in the region. She actively participates in American Society of Hematology (ASH) initiatives, serves as a member of the ASH Clinical Research Training Institute (CRTI) subcommittee, and is part of the CRTI for Latin America faculty group.
Aaron Logan, MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
Dr Aaron Logan is associate professor of clinical medicine, chair of the Hematologic Tissue Use Oversight Committee, and director of the Hematologic Malignancies Tissue Bank at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He earned his medical degree, and PhD in molecular microbiology and immunology, from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. He completed a residency in internal medicine, and fellowships in hematology and blood and marrow transplantation at Stanford University School of Medicine, CA.
Dr Logan specializes in the management of patients with hematologic malignancies, particularly those treatable by transplantation with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cells, including acute leukemias, myelodysplastic syndrome, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, aplastic anemia, and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. In his role as director of the Hematologic Malignancies Tissue bank at UCSF, he collaborates with many investigators on elucidating the etiology of, and possible treatment for, various blood cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. Dr Logan and his laboratory are interested in methods for evaluating clonotypic diversity in the B and T lymphocyte repertoires in patients, particularly following hematopoietic cell transplantation when used to treat blood cancers, bone marrow failure disorders, and congenital immune deficiencies. Methods used in the laboratory currently include T-cell receptor excision circle and kappa-deleting recombination circle quantification, high-throughput sequencing of immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor genes, and in vitro mixed lymphocyte reactions to identify T cells with specific reactivities. Efforts in the lab are focused on the application of immune repertoire profiling to quantify and track malignancy-, pathogen-, and autoantigen-targeted immune responses following allogeneic transplantation, as well as use of this platform to quantify measurable residual disease in lymphoid malignancies. In Dr Logan’s lab, the Hematologic Malignancies Tissue Bank at UCSF has been built into a robust resource for samples isolated from patients with a wide diversity of blood cancers and following transplantation. These samples are made available in a deidentified manner to the UCSF and larger research community for cooperative discovery.
Dr Logan is a member of the American Society of Hematology, American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Electronic Health Record Advisory Group. His research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Clinical Cancer Research, Blood, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
Jae Park, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA
Dr Jae Park is associate attending physician in the Division of Hematologic Oncology, chief of the Cellular Therapy Service, and a director of the Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City, NY. He received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and completed an internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and a hematology-oncology fellowship at MSKCC.
Dr Park’s research focus is on translating and establishing novel targeted and immunotherapies for patients with hematologic malignancies. He is widely recognized as a world expert in the field of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and is the leading principal investigator of several clinical trials in patients with ALL and chronic lymphocytic leukemia/non-Hodgkin lymphoma using CAR T, natural killer cell therapies, bispecific T-cell engagers, immature dendritic cells, targeted agents, and immunomodulators.
Dr Park has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles appearing in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Science Translational Medicine, Blood, Cancer Discovery, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. His research has been recognized and funded by the American Society of Hematology, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Clinical Oncology, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Geoffrey Beene Foundation, and National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
Josep-Maria Ribera, MD, PhD
Catalan Institute of Oncology, Badalona, Spain
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.
Wellington Silva, MD, PhD
Hospital das Clínicas, São Paulo, Brasília
Collaborating Professor in the Division of Hematology and Hemotherapy at the University of São Paulo Medical School (FMUSP). Attending Physician at the Cancer Institute of the Hospital das Clínicas, FMUSP. Earned a PhD in Medical Sciences/Hematology from the University of São Paulo Medical School in 2022. Associate member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and faculty member of the ASH Clinical Research Training Institute Latin America. Staff physician at Oncologia D’Or. Member of the research group at the Laboratory of Medical Investigation in Pathogenesis and Targeted Therapy in Onco-Immuno-Hematology (LIM-31), where he conducts collaborative research in acute leukemias.
Institutional representative of the Cancer Institute of São Paulo (ICESP) to the International Consortium for Acute Leukemias (ICAL), a Latin American registry for acute myeloid leukemias. Founding member of the BRALLA group (Brazilian protocol for adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia treatment). Principal investigator in several clinical trials focused on salvage therapy for adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients treated in the public health system. Serves as a peer reviewer for national and international scientific journals in the field. Maintains international collaborations in AML research (University of Ohio, University Hospital Essen) and ALL research (University of Chicago). Since May 2025, serves on the editorial board of the international journal Blood Global Hematology and, as of June 2025, is an associate editor of Annals of Hematology. Currently acts as Latin American representative on the scientific committee of the ALL Assembly.
Dr Silva has authored and co-authored numerous publications and abstracts, reflecting his commitment to advancing acute leukemia research in the university setting. His ultimate goal is to contribute to the improvement of acute leukemia outcomes in his country through dedicated research efforts.
