Speakers

Dr. Hanny Al-Samkari is the Peggy S. Blitz Endowed Chair in Hematology/Oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a classical hematologist and NIH-funded clinical investigator and clinical trialist. He also serves as Co-Director the MGH Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) Center of Excellence. His clinical and research interests are in hemostasis, thrombosis and hemolysis, with focuses in HHT, thrombocytopenias, and hemolytic anemias. As a clinical investigator, Dr. Al-Samkari is an internationally recognized expert in the clinical development of novel therapeutics for these disorders and serves as the lead principal investigator for multiple ongoing clinical trials. He is a current Associate Editor of the American Journal of Hematology and the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts. His original research has been featured in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine and Blood, among other top peer-reviewed journals in hematology and medicine.

Jennifer R. Brown, M.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the CLL Center of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and the Worthington and Margaret Collette Professor of Medicine in the Field of Hematologic Oncology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. She has been instrumental in the clinical development of idelalisib, ibrutinib, zanubrutinib and acalabrutinib-venetoclax, leading to their regulatory approvals in CLL. Her genomics work has characterized the somatic mutation profile of CLL, and she also has a longstanding research interest in the inherited predisposition to CLL. To date, she has published about 335 papers in the scientific literature, predominantly in CLL. She is a member of the International Workshop on CLL (iwCLL) and enjoys a worldwide reputation as a CLL expert having made the Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate, with multiple papers ranking in the top 1% by citations for their field and year of publication.

Adam Cuker, M.D., M.S, is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Chief of the Section of Hematology, Director of the Penn Comprehensive Hemophilia & Thrombosis Program, and Assistant Director of the Penn Specialized Coagulation Laboratory. He is a Councilor on the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Executive Committee and a member of the Board of Directors of the Hemostasis and Thrombosis Research Society. He conducts patient-oriented research on disorders of hemostasis and thrombosis.

Amy E. DeZern, MD, MHS, is Professor of Oncology and Vice Chair for Hematologic Malignancies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She directs the Bone Marrow Failure and Myelodysplastic Syndromes Program at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. DeZern is an internationally recognized physician-scientist and clinical trialist whose work focuses on bone marrow failure syndromes, myelodysplastic syndromes, acute myeloid leukemia, hematopoietic cell transplantation, and the translation of novel therapies into clinical practice. After earning her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, she completed residency training through the Osler Medical Service, fellowships in Medical Oncology and Hematology at Johns Hopkins, and a Master of Health Science in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has served as principal investigator for more than 40 clinical trials and has built nationally recognized clinical and research programs in bone marrow failure and myeloid malignancies. As Vice Chair, she has helped lead the growth of the Johns Hopkins Hematologic Malignancies, Bone Marrow Transplantation, and Cellular Therapy enterprise.

Dr. Douketis is a Staff Physician in General Internal Medicine and Thromboembolism at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. He is Professor of Medicine and holds the David Braley-Nancy Gordon Chair in Thromboembolic Disease at McMaster University.

Training: He received his M.D. and did internal medicine at the University of Toronto, followed by a thrombosis fellowship at McMaster University.

Research: Includes perioperative anticoagulant management and related guideline development, and the prevention, treatment and prognosis of patients with venous thromboembolism. He has 480 peer-reviewed publications with an h-index=113, i-index=365, and ~117K citations (June 2026).

Leadership: He holds leadership positions in national and international thrombosis societies, and has editorial roles in multiple thrombosis/internal medicine journals.

Social: Jim lives in Hamilton, Canada with his wife, Dr. Margaret Nowaczyk, a clinical geneticist, has two sons, Jack and Luke, and is a cellist with the Burlington Symphony Orchestra.

Andrew M. Evens, DO, MBA, MSc, is SVP & Chief Medical Officer of RWJBarnabas Medical Group & RWJ BarnabasHealth. He serves as Deputy Director for Clinical Services and Chief Physician Officer at the Rutgers Cancer Institute and the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical Innovation and Data Analytics at Rutgers Health. He also serves as Professor of Medicine for Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He oversees integrated cancer care across 16 acute care hospitals and more than 40 ambulatory oncology practices in New Jersey. An internationally recognized expert in lymphoid malignancies, Dr. Evens’ research focuses on novel therapeutics, predictive modeling, and personalized medicine. He has maintained continuous NIH and NCI funding since 2005, served as principal investigator on more than 80 prospective clinical trials, and authored over 250 peer reviewed publications. He is Editor in Chief of the British Journal of Haematology and holds multiple national leadership roles in lymphoma research.

Dr. Kahl’s is a Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and Director of the Lymphoma Program at the Siteman Cancer Center. His clinical interests involve the care of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. His research focuses on the development of new treatments for lymphoma patients, with emphasis on novel agents. He is the Chairman of the ECOG-ACRIN Lymphoma Committee, an NCI funded national cancer research group which is dedicated to advancing lymphoma research, with a focus on improving patient outcomes and developing innovative treatments for various types of lymphoma.

Dr. Ruben Mesa is senior vice president of Advocate Health and the president of the Advocate Health Cancer National Service Line (and executive director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center. Additionally, Dr. Mesa serves as the Vice Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine for cancer programs and the Charles L. Spurr, MD, Professor of Internal Medicine. Dr. Mesa received his medical degree at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in Rochester,MN where he also completed residency and fellowship training in Hematology & medical Oncology. Dr. Mesa's research focuses on MPN biology, novel therapeutics and over 100 phase I-III clinical trials, symptom assessment tools and non-pharmacological interventions to alleviate MPN symptoms and has been continuously funded by the NCI . He has led or co-led the development of 6 drugs that have been FDA-approved for MPNs. Dr. Mesa has won many career awards for his research from the Mayo Clinic, and was the 2024 Distinguished Alumnus from University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and 2025 Recipient of the Ernest Beutler Award from American Society of Hematology.

Joshua Richter, M.D.,FACP is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Oncology in the Myeloma Division at the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Director of Myeloma at the Blavatnik Family Chelsea Medical Center at Mount Sinai. He completed undergraduate work at Johns Hopkins University and subsequently went on to medical school at New York Medical College. He completed residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital – New York Medical College. Dr. Richter completed his hematology/oncology fellowship at the Yale Cancer Center. After completing fellowship he worked in the myeloma division at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical. In 2018 he joined the Myeloma Division at Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Richter has been published in numerous oncology journals including NEJM, Blood, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology. He has an interest in immunotherapy, multi-functional antibodies and precision medicine.Dr. Rao is one of the founding Principal Editors of the journal PLATELETS (Publisher: Carfax Publishing). He has served a member of the editorial boards of Blood and Platelets, and as Associate Editor (Hemostasis and Thrombosis) of Henry’s Clinical Management by Laboratory, McPherson and Pinkus (Editors), 23rd and 24th Editions. He is the recipient of the ISTH Investigator Recognition Award for Contribution to Hemostasis (1997); Temple University Faculty Research Award (2001); F1000 Prime - Faculty Member of the Year 2013 Award; Distinguished Career Award, South Asian Society for Atherosclerosis and Thrombosis (2006); Distinguished Scientist Award, Department of Medicine, LKSOM (2014); Charles Koller Memorial Lectureship, M.D Anderson Cancer Center (2017); Senior Research Excellence Award, LKSOM (2018). Dr. Rao is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Inter-Urban Clinical Club founded by Sir William Osler in 1905 (served President 2004-05), the AOA Honor Society, and a Fellow of the AHA and the ACP. He has served on NIH study sections and has been funded by NIH grants since the 1980s.

Dr. S. Vincent Rajkumar is Edward W. and Betty Knight Scripps Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Blood Cancer Journal, and also serves as the Associate Editor for Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Leukemia, and European Journal of Hematology. He is co-chair of the International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG), and Chair of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) myeloma committee. Dr. Rajkumar is the Chair of the Board of directors of the International Myeloma Foundation and a member of the National Institutes of Health’s Multiple Myeloma Steering Committee. He is the recipient of multiple awards for his contributions to myeloma research including the Jan Waldenstrom Lifetime Achievement Award, the Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Giants of Cancer Care Award. He was named Mayo Clinic Distinguished Investigator in 2018. His scientific contributions include clinical trials, epidemiological studies, and laboratory research focused on myeloma and related disorders. He has led several large studies on the prevalence and progression of monoclonal gammopathies, racial disparities in the incidence of myeloma, and familial predisposition. Dr. Rajkumar has over 800 publications, including over 500 peer-reviewed original research papers and 250 reviews and book chapters.

Amer Zeidan, MBBS, MHS is a Professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. He serves as the Chief of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies, Director of Hematology Early Therapeutics Research, and Assistant Director of the Clinical Trial Office for Hematology at Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center (YCC). He is also the leader of Leukemia and Myeloid malignancies Clinical Research Team. Dr. Zeidan obtained his medical degree with honors from University of Jordan, followed by residency in Rochester General hospital, Rochester, NY. He then completed a Hematology/Oncology fellowship and a clinical research fellowship in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) at Johns Hopkins University where he also earned a Master of Health Science (MHS) degree in Clinical Investigation. He joined Yale Faculty in 2014 where he has become an internationally recognized expert in myeloid malignancies. Dr Zeidan has been conducting research on the development of novel therapies for myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a special focus on targeted and immunotherapy-based approaches.