Faculty Biographies

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.

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.