Faculty Biographies

Dr Patrick Brown is associate professor of oncology and pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Leukemia Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD.

Dr Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, and a master’s degree in philosophy and politics from Oxford University in England. After earning his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Dr Brown was an intern and resident in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, and subsequently completed a joint clinical fellowship with Johns Hopkins and the National Cancer Institute in pediatric hematology/oncology.

Dr Brown is the vice chair for relapse and an executive steering committee member of the ALL Committee in the Children’s Oncology Group, and chairs the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Clinical Guidelines Panels for adult and pediatric ALL. His research focuses on developing molecularly targeted therapies for high-risk childhood leukemias.

Dieter Hoelzer, MD, PhD, is professor of medicine and hematology at the University of Frankfurt, as well as founder and director of the Onkologikum Frankfurt am Museumsufer, Germany. He received his medical education at the Universities of Münster, Munich, Vienna, and Freiburg. He earned his PhD in clinical physiology.

Dr Hoelzer’s main research area is acute leukemias. He founded the German Adult ALL Study Group, which has conducted 7 multicenter studies in more than 100 participating hospitals. He is also involved in stem cell research and currently participating in a gene therapy trial for chronic granulomatous disease.

Dr Hoelzer served as vice president of the European Society for Clinical Investigation. He is a founder and past president of the European Hematology Association, and current vice president of the European School of Haematology and the European and German leukemia competence networks. Dr Hoelzer is also coordinator of the European Working Group on Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He is author or co-author of more than 650 peer-reviewed publications, co-author of international textbooks, and author of several monographs.

Elias Jabbour, MD, is professor of medicine, Department of Leukemia, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), Houston, TX. 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 both in acute and chronic forms of leukemia. He 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.

Prof Franco Locatelli is head of the Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology, IRCCS Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome, and full professor of pediatrics at the Sapienza University of Rome in Italy. He leads the largest program of childhood allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in Italy and was recently appointed president of the Italian Higher Council of Health (Consiglio Superiore di Sanità), the technical scientific advisory body to the Ministry of Health. He graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in Italy, where he also obtained a specialization in pediatrics and hematology. In 2005, he received the Gold Medal for Merit in public health by the president of the Italian Republic.

Prof Locatelli is an expert in childhood hematologic and oncologic malignancies. He was the president of the Italian Association for Pediatric Hematology-Oncology from 2004 to 2006, and served as chairman of the EWOG-MDS consortium from 2005 to 2011. Currently, he coordinates the national protocols for children with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia and relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He has implemented in Italy the first-in-human academic studies on children with CD19+ lymphoid malignancies using second-generation retroviral chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and on children with GD2+ neuroblastoma.

Prof Locatelli is also involved in the development and validation of gene therapy approaches in patients with thalassemia and sickle cell disease and he has extensive experience in running phase I/II clinical trials. He is the author or co-author of 1,070 peer-reviewed articles published in international journals and he has an overall impact factor above 5000 and an H-index of 99 (Scopus source).

Rob Pieters, MD, PhD, is chief medical officer at the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology and professor of pediatric oncology at the University of Utrecht, both in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He obtained his medical degree at the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, followed by his PhD with a thesis on drug resistance in leukemia. After finishing his training in pediatrics, he received a clinical fellowship in pediatric oncology from the Dutch Cancer Society. From 1999–2014, he was head of pediatric oncology/hematology at the Erasmus MC-Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam. From 2000–2017 he was professor of pediatric oncology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and is now professor of pediatric oncology at the University of Utrecht. Prof Pieters is one of the founders of the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology. This national center is a unique innovation in health care, as it has merged experts and expertise from all former childhood cancer centers in the Netherlands, thereby establishing the largest center in Europe for treatment and research of childhood cancer.

Prof Pieters chairs and is a member of different boards of international childhood cancer study groups and data safety monitoring boards for childhood cancer. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 1992 SIOP Schweisguth Prize for his research and the 2014 ODAS Award for his achievements in pediatric cancer. In 2018, he received a Royal knighthood decoration as Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau for his work and dedication to children with cancer, especially for founding the Princess Máxima Center. Prof Pieters is well published in the medical literature, with over 600 book chapters and papers on childhood cancer in peer-reviewed journals.

José Maria Ribera is chief of the Clinical Hematology Department and the Stem Cell Transplantation Unit at the Catalan Institute of Oncology University Hospital ‘Germans Trias i Pujol’ in Badalona, Barcelona, Spain. He is also a professor of medicine and hematology at the Autònoma University of Barcelona. After gaining his medical degree, Prof Ribera specialized in hematology at the Hospital Clínic Barcelona, before completing his PhD in the Clinical Hematology Department.

Prof Ribera’s main areas of scientific interest include acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and lymphomas arising in HIV-infected patients. President of the foundation of the cooperative Spanish Hematology Treatment Program (PETHEMA) and chairman of the PETHEMA Adult ALL Program, Prof Ribera is a member of the steering committee of the European LeukemiaNet and of the European Working Group for Adult ALL (EWALL). A reviewer for many hematology and oncology journals, he has authored or co-authored more than 485 articles in international peer-reviewed journals (H index 60), as well as 100 book chapters on hematology and oncology.

Philippe Rousselot, MD, PhD, is professor of hematology at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, and head of the Department of Hematology and Oncology, Centre Hospitalier de Versailles, France. Following graduation as a medical doctor and his clinical hematology experience gained at Saint-Louis Hospital, he obtained his PhD in cellular biology.

Prof Rousselot’s research has focused on topics such as minimal residual disease in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) with the possibility of CML eradication by signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 modulation, and optimization of tyrosine kinase inhibitors. He was a principal investigator of the STop IMatinib (STIM) French trial. He is also involved in Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL) therapy, as the coordinator of the European Working Group for Adult ALL (EWALL) trials in older Ph+ ALL patients.

Prof Rousselot has worked in CML for 25 years and is a founding member of the French CML Group. He is also a member of the Acute Leukemia French Association (acute myeloid leukemia) and GRAALL (ALL) groups, and a participant in EWALL.