I received a very exciting grant proposal this week from Khaled El-Shami, one of our newest faculty members. Khaled is a hematologist/oncologist who joined the Lombardi clinic on July 1st, after finishing his fellowship at Hopkins.
He sent me a draft of a grant he’s writing on understanding the immune response to acute myeloid leukemia. The question he asks is whether activated T-cell infiltrates in the bone marrow of AML patients are associated with improved outcomes. Such associations have been found in several solid tumors, but have not been studied in hematological malignancies.
I was impressed by both his enthusiasm for the study and the excellence of his proposal. I encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about this project to contact Khaled (email elshamik@georgetown.edu). It’s a great example of the translational research going on at Lombardi.
I also wanted to briefly mention how impressed I am that people have continued to attend the Wednesday seminars, even in the middle of August when it seems like everyone is on vacation (Although, I was pleased that turnout was a little lighter than usual so I got to eat an extra piece of pizza!). I really enjoyed Chip Albanese’s presentation, and I was particularly struck by the new imaging tools that he has incorporated into his research. I hope others are finding these seminars useful as well.