NMDP awards grants for innovative research projects led by early-career physicians and nurse
FEB. 13, 2025—NMDPSM continued our commitment to supporting researchers who are doing groundbreaking work for patients who receive a blood stem cell transplant or another cell therapy. Two early-career physician scientists and one pediatric nurse researcher received grants from NMDP to help them move their research forward.
Warren B. Fingrut, MD, MPH, and Mark B. Leick, MD, received NMDP Amy Strelzer Manasevit Research Program grants, while Clifton P. Thornton, PhD, MSN, received the NMDP Barbara Buchbinder Nurse Research Program grant.
Since 1998, the Amy Research Program has awarded up to $400,000 over five years to each recipient. Amy Scholars are pursuing research that focuses on improving patient outcomes and reducing complications after treatment. In its second year, the Buchbinder Nurse Research Program awards a $25,000, one-time grant for research that focuses on improving the transplant experience and outcomes for pediatric patients.
Understanding non-medical factors that impact transplant outcomes
Dr. Fingrut, who is a physician and researcher at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, intends to understand how non-medical factors—like income, where someone lives, or their race or ethnicity—impact access to and how well a patient does after transplant or cell therapy using a novel machine learning approach. In addition, he's exploring if the support of a financial "concierge" throughout treatment can help patients address social challenges or financial hardship to lessen the impact on patient outcomes.
I am honored to become an Amy Scholar and receive this esteemed award. My aim is to develop approaches to help all patients, including those from vulnerable populations, to receive life-saving transplantation and cell therapy care.
Warren B. Fingrut, MD, MPH
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
His study is one of the first ever to collect information from patients on those non-medical factors—often called social determinants of health—across a department at a major cancer center while the research is underway.
"This is important because it will help improve how we deliver care and will also generate lessons to support other transplant centers in collecting this important data from patients. We'll analyze the detailed social determinants of health data that we collect using machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches. These methods can help us uncover the complex relationships among social determinants of health variables," Dr. Fingrut explained.
Using CAR-T cells to address relapse in patients with AML
Dr. Leick's research aims to address relapse, the main cause of treatment failure, in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) by testing strategies using genetically engineered T-cells. One of those strategies includes a clinical trial of a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) and performing a deep-dive analysis to understand what's happening to those T-cells in patients, which will help inform future work.
Achieving funding through NMDP and the Amy Research Program is a significant milestone for young translational investigators working to improve the lives of patients after cell therapies. I am incredibly humbled and honored to be recognized.
Mark B. Leick, MD
Massachusetts General Hospital
"The backing of NMDP and the Amy Research Program serve as tremendous sources of professional and research support, networking and recognition that propels future endeavors. I aim to utilize the resources awarded in memory of Amy Strelzer Manasevit to improve the lives of patients with AML," said Dr. Leick, who divides his time between caring for patients who receive CAR-T therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital and in the lab, developing new CAR-T therapies and better understanding benefits of existing ones.
Using AI to make progress towards preventing a painful transplant side effect
Dr. Thornton’s research explores how artificial intelligence (AI) can identify and characterize side effects of transplant that have been difficult to research in the past. The research team will train an AI model to identify factors that contribute to or indicate development of a common condition called mucositis where patients develop painful sores in the mouth and throat during transplant.
I am deeply honored to receive this grant and recognition. It is especially meaningful to have my work acknowledged by an organization that values the contributions of nursing and nursing science.
Clifton P. Thorton, PhD, MSN
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
"Progress in preventing mucositis has been slow because it's difficult and time-consuming to accurately identify which patients develop it," explained Clifton, who is a scientist and pediatric nurse practitioner at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
By testing how well AI can identify mucositis in 1,000 pediatric transplant patients, researchers can determine when and how severe mucositis presents. Then, they can begin to see which factors might influence mucositis development and how it impacts patients.
"Our hope is that this is a first step in using AI to our advantage in oncology research and we can see how it may catapult our progress to preventing mucositis and other adverse events of therapy," Clifton said.
The Amy Research Program and Buchbinder Nurse Research Program are fully funded through generous financial gifts.
Amy Strelzer Manasevit was a vibrant young mother of two who succumbed to post-transplant complications. Since Amy's family founded the program in 1998, NMDP has supported 53 early-career physician-scientists with financial investments of more than $13 million to develop research portfolios and establish their labs.
Barbara Buchbinder was a beloved wife and mother of two who dedicated more than 20 years of her nursing career to pediatric hematology/oncology and blood stem cell transplant care. Awarded for the first time in 2024, NMDP has supported two nurses with a financial investment of more than $50,000.
Explore how NMDP supports researchers to advance cell therapy, so patients not only survive but thrive.