SPEAKERS

The Scientific and Organising Committees are pleased to announce the opening list of Invited Speakers taking part in the NDLR 2026 program.

**please note this is a preliminary list of speakers and will continue to be updated on regular basis**

International speakers

Associate Professor Marta Chesi, PhD

Associate Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Phoenix Arizona, USA

Dr. Chesi studies the biology of multiple myeloma, a tumor of antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow that leads to anemia, renal insufficiency and bone disease. She is interested in identifying the genetic events that lead to myeloma development and progression, in modeling their effects in vivo, and in developing personalized therapeutic strategies that target the cancer cells while boosting the immune system.

Professor Jan Cools

Professor KU Leuven, Group Leader VIB, Editor-in-Chief of HemaSphere

More than 20 years of experience in leukemia / oncology research: molecular genetics of leukemia, next-generation sequencing, single-cell sequencing, mouse models of leukemia, targeted therapy, patient-derived xenografts.

More than 10 years of experience as journal editor (open access journals Haematologica & HemaSphere).

Professor John D. Crispino, PhD, MBA

Member, St. Jude Faculty
Director, Division of Experimental Hematology
Wall Street Committee Endowed Chair

Dr. John Crispino is the Wall Street Committee Endowed Chair and Chief of the Division of Experimental Hematology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Over the years, Dr. Crispino’s laboratory has made many important contributions to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of normal and malignant hematopoiesis. Currently, his research is focused on the biology of red blood cells and megakaryocytes, the mechanisms of leukemogenesis in children with Down syndrome, and the characterization of genetic changes that lead to transformation of blood diseases such as MPN to acute leukemia. His laboratory also seeks to develop novel, targeted therapies for patients with blood cancer.

Associate Professor Julia Maxson, PhD

Associate Professor of Division of Oncological Sciences, School of Medicine
Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Medical Oncology, School of Medicine
Associate Professor of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology, School of Medicine
OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, School of Medicine

Dr. Maxson is an Associate Professor in the Knight Cancer Institute, where she investigates the cellular and molecular changes that cause myeloid leukemias. She pursued her undergraduate studies at Scripps College and then completed her Ph.D. in Cell Biology, studying protein trafficking and processing. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Drs. Jeff Tyner and Brian Druker, she integrated genomic and functional screening data to identify novel therapeutic targets in leukemia. Notably, Dr. Maxson identified therapeutically targetable mutations in CSF3R in the vast majority of patients with Chronic Neutrophilic Leukemia.

Professor Ari. M. Melnick, MD

Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology and Professor of Medicine, Immunology and Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine College (WCMC), New York City, USA

Ari Melnick, MD, completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in hematology/oncology, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, USA.

Dr. Melnick’s research interests include the biology and molecular targeting of B-cell lymphomas and acute leukemias, targeting transcriptional and epigenetic repressors for cancer therapy, and identifying the epigenetic basis of hematologic malignancies. He and his research associates have a developed novel therapies to correct aberrant transcriptional regulation and signaling in these tumors. Dr. Melnick has authored more than 300 published manuscripts in journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, Cancer Discovery, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He is a past ASH Faculty Scholar, LLS Scholar, Burroughs Wellcome Translational Research Scholar and Kimmel Foundation Scholar and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians.

Lindsey Montefiori, PhD

Research Associate, Department of Pathology,
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Lindsey Montefiori, PhD, is a Research Associate at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Her research investigates the gene-regulatory mechanisms of oncogenic transcription factors in acute leukemia, with a particular focus on lineage ambiguous leukemias. Her work ultimately aims to uncover the molecular basis of gene-regulatory networks that drive leukemia development and identify new therapies that counteract these pathways. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago, Department of Human Genetics and subsequently trained with Dr. Charles Mullighan, MBBS, MSc, MD for her postdoctoral research prior to becoming a Research Associate. She has received funding from the LLS and the NCI to support her research.

A/Professor Jessica Nordlund, PhD

Associate Professor (Docent) and Research Group Leader at Uppsala University | Managing Director, National Genomics Infrastructure at SciLIfeLab Uppsala | co-founder SPLATomics

Dr Elliot Stieglitz

Pediatric oncologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals

As a physician-scientist, Dr. Stieglitz focuses his clinical and laboratory investigations on improving outcomes for children with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML). He has conducted several clinical trials for patients with JMML, including NCT05849662, which is currently risk-stratifying JMML patients to receive different intensities of therapy based on a DNA methylation assay. Current lab-based investigations include developing CAR-T therapies and targeted inhibitors using mouse models of JMML.

national speakers

Dr Jennifer Devlin

Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Jennifer received her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2015 and have worked as a postdoc researcher at the University of Helsinki (2015-2017) and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (2017 -). Jennifer is currently a Senior postdoctoral in Professor Ricky Johnstone's Gene Regulation lab. Jennifer’s research focuses on dissecting the molecular mechanisms that control gene expression to identify transcriptional vulnerabilities that may be exploited for cancer treatment.

Jennifer is focusing on interrogating and understanding the complex interplay between multiple regulators of RNA Polymerase II transcription cycles, with a key focus on the cyclin-dependent-kinase (CDK) family. Jennifer utlises state-of-the-art cell and molecular biology and protein biochemistry approaches to make new discoveries about fundamental biological processes. Jennifer has supervised undergraduate (Honours, summer) students and have projects available for Honours, Masters and PhD students.

Dr Rishi S Kotecha, PhD, MB

Consultant Paediatric Oncologist & Clinical Haematologist, Perth Children’s Hospital

Professor Steven Lane

Group Leader, QIMR Berghofer

Professor Steven Lane is a clinical haematologist and devotes 30% of his time to seeing patients with leukaemia and related blood disorders at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. Professor Lane is active in clinical trials including as principal investigator on prospective clinical trials in acute leukaemia and has accredited GCP training.

Chelsea Mayoh

Principal Bioinformatic Scientist at Children's Cancer Institute

Dr Jad Othman

Haematologist at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney

Dr Jad Othman is a clinical and laboratory haematologist at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney and Research Fellow at The University of Sydney. His research focus is on the application of molecular diagnostics and MRD to the treatment of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia, having completed a fellowship at the AML MRD lab at Kings College London. He is an active contributor to the ALLG AML/MDS working party and the European LeukaemiaNet international working group for MRD assessment and validation in AML (ELN-DAVID).

Dr Raymond Yip

Senior Research Officer, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

I completed my PhD at the University of Hong Kong in 2017 followed by postdoctoral training in the breast cancer laboratory at WEHI. During postdoctoral training, I translated my expertise in skeletal development to study the role of bone microenvironment in skeletal metastasis. Currently, I work across Imaging/Genomics/Edwin Hawkins laboratories on the multiple myeloma bone microenvironment and lead implementation of spatial multi-omics technologies at WEHI.