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.

Associate 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 Cavan Bennett

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

Dr Cavan Bennett is a postdoctoral biomedical researcher aiming to improve people's lives through translation of innovative discoveries to real world therapeutics and technologies. Cavan has a passion for haematology, rare blood cancers (particularly MPNs) and iron biology. His work is highly collaborative, having engaged successfully with researchers both within Australia and internationally. Cavan has also partnered with industry to translate his findings in mouse models of blood cancers to clinical trials. He also enjoys engaging with those affected by the diseases he is working on, using those lived experiences to shape his research. Most recently, he has engaged with MPN Alliance Australia, which has shaped his ongoing research into Polycythaemia Vera.

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.

Professor Eliza Hawkes

Chief Clinical Research Officer and Lymphoma Lead, Medical Oncologist, Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute at Austin Health

Eliza completed a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at Monash University followed by formal training as a Medical Oncologist in the care of cancer patients both in Melbourne and then via a five year clinical fellowship at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK. Eliza is a Fellow of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (Medical Oncology) and has a DMedSc from the University of Melbourne (Medicine).

As an oncologist at Austin Health, Eliza's main areas of responsibility are to lead the care and manage patients with lymphoma and also treat gastrointestinal cancers.

Associate Professor Lev Kats

Group Leader, Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Program,
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Assoc Prof Lev Kats is a group leader within the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics Program and the co-lead of the Myeloma Medicines theme within the Barrie Dalgleish Centre for Myeloma and Related Blood Cancers. He was awarded his PhD in 2009 from Monash University and completed his post-doctoral training at Beth Israel Deaconess Centre/Harvard Medical School. Assoc Prof Kats is interested in epigenetic regulation, metabolism and targeted therapies and his laboratory uses molecular and functional genomics to develop new treatment strategies for aggressive blood cancers.

Professor Rishi S Kotecha, PhD, MD

Paediatric Oncologist, Perth Children’s Hospital

Professor Rishi Kotecha is a clinician-scientist who is Clinical Lead of the Paediatric Blood Cancer program for Western Australia and is Co-Head of the Leukaemia Translational Research Laboratory at The Kids Research Institute Australia. Rishi’s research program is focused on developing new models and investigating novel therapies for high-risk leukaemia, with translation from bench to bedside via his leadership roles within international clinical trials consortia. He holds a NHMRC Investigator Fellowship and has authored over 120 published manuscripts. Professor Kotecha is the current Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Leukaemia-Lymphoma Group.

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

Chelsea Mayoh began her research career at the Genome Sciences Centre within the BC Cancer Agency, Canada. Here, she worked on understanding the heterogeneity and causes of relapse in children with medulloblastoma, while also working on the initial stages of Canada’s personalised oncogenomics program for adults.

In 2015 she joined Children’s Cancer Institute as the sole bioinformatician which led to the establishment of the Institute’s first Bioinformatics Group. At the same time as establishing a team of bioinformaticians and expanding the bioinformatics capabilities of the organisation as a whole, she began working on the Zero Childhood Cancer Program (ZERO), developing the bioinformatics tools needed to analyse the RNA of tumours of children participating in the Program’s national clinical trial – the next-generation RNA sequencing (transcriptome) pipeline. Chelsea and her team also developed and maintain the drug discovery pipeline for the trial, enabling rapid screening of 125 drugs to identify which of these could potentially be effective in treating a particular child’s cancer.

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).

Professor Hamish Scott, PhD

Head of Department, Genetics and Molecular Pathology, SA Pathology

Hamish leads a dynamic diagnostic and academic department of Genetics and Molecular Pathology at SA Pathology, including their genome laboratories and facilities. The integration of basic and clinical research is facilitated by the Centre for Cancer Biology, an SA Pathology and UniSA alliance, and students from both UniSA and the University of Adelaide. He advocates for, uses, and helps build national and international diagnostic and research collaborative genomic networks for patient benefit. These collaborations have advanced our understanding not only of genetic disease in diverse areas such as stillbirth and cancer predisposition, but informed fundamental developmental biology.

Dr Julie Thoms

Senior Research Fellow, University of New South Wales

Dr Julie Thoms is a Senior Research Fellow in the Adult Cancer Program and School of Biomedical Sciences. Her research interests lie in understanding how gene regulatory networks control stem cell characteristics during normal and leukemic blood development, with the ultimate aim of using this knowledge to develop targeted therapies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).

Dr Raymond Yip