Ask the PIs

Kiran Batta, PhD - UK

Associate Professor, Division of Cancer Sciences
The University of Manchester

Learn More

Kiran Batta is a Senior lecturer in cancer Biology (aka Associate Professor) in the Division of Cancer Sciences, The University of Manchester. In 2017, Kiran was awarded Oglesby Leukaemia Research Fellowship to start his independent group. Kiran’s research focuses on understanding epigenetic dysregulation leading to the onset and progression of leukaemia with a special focus on Chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia. In close collaboration with clinician scientists at The Christie hospital, Manchester, UK  Kiran’s lab is working towards identifying potential molecular targets for therapeutic benefit in leukaemia patients.  Kiran's lab gets funding from Medical Research UK, Blood Cancer UK, Cancer Research UK and Oglesby Charitable trust.

Marlies Vanden Bempt, PhD - Belgium

Assistant Professor, Laboratory for Experimental Hematology
KU Leuven

Learn More

Marlies Vanden Bempt graduated from KU Leuven as a Bioscience engineer in 2013, and started her doctoral research in the lab of Jan Cools in the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology. Her PhD research focused on molecular mechanisms of fusion genes in hematological cancers, using CRISPR to create new cell and mouse models for leukemia. During postdoc positions in the labs of Daan Dierickx (KU Leuven) and Adam Wilkinson (University of Oxford), she discovered a novel non-canonical function for the methyltransferase EZH2 in T cell malignancies and in hematopoietic stem cells. In September 2025, Marlies started her own lab at KU Leuven. With her research, she aims to further unravel the epigenetic mechanisms that shape normal and malignant hematopoiesis.

Hélène Gleitz, PhD - the Netherlands

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Erasmus Medical Center 

Learn More

Hélène Gleitz, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the department of Developmental Biology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD at the University of Manchester, developing gene therapy for rare paediatric diseases. Hélène started her postdoctoral fellowship Rebekka Schneider’s group in 2018, working on inflammation and myeloproliferative neoplasms. Since starting her lab in 2023 at Erasmus MC, Hélène investigates the crosstalk between hematopoietic stem cells and their microenvironment in chronic blood cancers and bone marrow fibrosis across niches, identifying new targets and therapeutic options.

Mathieu Lupien, PhD - Canada

Senior Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Professor, University of Toronto

Learn More

Dr. Mathieu Lupien is a Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and a Professor at the University of Toronto, with a cross-appointment at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. He serves on both the Research Executive and the Research Council on Oncology at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and is Chair of the Genetics and Epigenetics Program. Among his key discoveries, Dr. Lupien discovered chromatin variants in cancer that affect gene expression. He also contributed to identifying the first example of a cancer driven solely by chromatin variants rather than genetic mutations. By integrating chromatin and genetic variants, Dr. Lupien’s unveiled new classes of cancer drivers within the non-coding genome, and their combined action in cancer. Finally, his research has demonstrated the value of epigenetic therapies targeting chromatin variants to treat aggressive cancers, such as breast, prostate, leukemia, and diverse brain tumours.

Thomas Milne, PhD - UK

Professor of Haematology, Radcliffe Department of Medicine
University of Oxford

Learn More

Tom Milne became a Group Leader in 2010 at the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit (MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK) an Associate Professor of Haematology in 2014, and a full Professor in 2022.  Current work in the Milne lab is to discover how epigenetic systems are leveraged in cancer to create pathogenic gene expression states and to use this basic knowledge to develop new targeted therapies. The main focus of the lab is on high-risk infant and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemias (ALLs), the most common form of paediatric cancer, for which relapse and refractory disease is largely untreatable. Tom is also a co-founder, shareholder and consultant for the spinout companies OxStem Oncology (2016-2021) and Dark Blue Therapeutics (2021 – present).

Pedro Moura, PhD - Sweden

Assistant Professor, Center for Hematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM)
Karolinska Institutet

Learn More

Dr. Pedro Moura is from Portugal, where he pursued his basic studies in cell and molecular biology. In 2016, he undertook a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol, UK, in the group of Prof. Ash Toye, focusing on the biology and proteomic studies of red blood cells in hemolytic anemia. Afterwards, in 2019, he moved to Sweden for his postdoc at the group of Prof. Eva Hellström-Lindberg, Karolinska Institutet, focusing on RNA biology in myelodysplastic syndromes. He is now assistant professor at KI, leading a research team focused on the mechanisms of molecular oncogenesis in blood cancer.

Rachel Thijssen, PhD - the Netherlands

Assistant Professor, CCA - Cancer biology and Immunology
Amsterdam UMC

Learn More

Dr Rachel Thijssen is an Assistant Professor at the Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands and is an expert in targeted therapy resistance in blood cancer. Supported by an ERC StG, an EHA Advanced Research Grant and a NWO VIDI Grant, her group focuses on unravelling how haematopoietic cancer cells evade cell death, with a focus on venetoclax resistance in leukaemias using state-of-the-art techniques such as single-cell multiome (RNA+ATAC) sequencing and single-cell long-read sequencing (Nanopore).

Shu-Chi Allison Yeh, PhD - US

Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology
University of Rochester Medical Center

Learn More

Dr. Yeh earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at McMaster University in 2015. Prior to her appointment in the University of Rochester, she had postdoctoral training with Prof. Giuseppe Intini’s at Harvard School of Dental Medicine,  and with Dr. Charles Lin at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital. Her postdoctoral work was focused on advancing intravital imaging technologies for studying bone and hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) biology, where she developed quantitative 3D bone histomorphometry in vivo to track bone regeneration. This technique enabled the discovery of compartmentalized bone remodeling cavities critical to focal expansion of HSCs. Research in her laboratory is now focused on leveraging and developing intravital imaging approaches to understand the interplay between bone and the HSC niches that regulate hematopoietic aging and malignancy.  Their recent work has been recognized by abstract awards from the ISEH, ASH, and ASBMR, and supported by Dresner MDS Foundation, Evans MDS foundation, the Bone Marrow Failure Research Program from Department of Defense, and NIH.

Elsa Bernard, PhD - France

Group Leader, Computational Clinical Oncology Group
Gustave Roussy

Learn More