Message from Dr. Karen Ballen, Division Chief, Hematology and Oncology
It is a pleasure to highlight our hard-working and successful Hematology/Oncology Division. We have had another banner year in our clinical care, research, education, and community engagement.
In the past year, we have had the good fortune to recruit three new clinical faculty, with an additional three faculty joining in the next few months. We welcomed Dr. Joseph Clara from the NIH to our Stem Cell Transplant Team; Dr. Clara is also the Medical Director of our Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) laboratory. Dr. Jack Masur, a graduate of our own fellowship program, joined our Genitourinary Oncology and Head and Neck Cancer teams. Dr. Ahmed Khalil is working with the UVA Community Health Oncology Group in Gainesville and Culpeper. Joining us in the fall are Dr. Sean Dougherty in Thoracic Oncology, Dr. Fabian Bolte in Gastrointestinal Oncology, and Dr. Dena Rinehart in Thoracic/Head and Neck Oncology.
Congratulations and thanks to our Advanced Practice Provider (APP) Managers, Jessica Kassay-McAllister, Susie Herndon, and Liz Lester. Our APP program continues to expand. Joining our team this year are APPs, Lauren Fry and Kirsten Hinson.
We are very proud that 29 of our providers were recognized for achieving Press-Ganey scores above the 90th percentile. In response to the growth of our clinical program, a new infusion unit opened at Pantops. We are expanding our clinical programs in Fishersville and Gainesville.
In research, our renewal application for our UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center was submitted in January. Despite the tough funding environment, we were awarded a $13 million Program Project Grant to study Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
In clinical research, we have 103 open clinical research treatment trials. These trials provide our patients with the latest and most innovative treatment for their cancers and blood disorders. We are grateful to the many friends of the Cancer Center and Hematology/Oncology who provide philanthropic support for our research efforts and help improve access to clinical trials.
In graduate medical education, our fellowship program continues to flourish with over 400 applicants for our four slots. Two of our fellows were selected for the very prestigious American Society of Clinical Oncology/American Association of Cancer Research training program. In undergraduate medical education, Dr. John Densmore has led the program at Inova and continues to be very active with admissions and counseling of our medical students.
We continue to work towards greater engagement with our community; we are partnering with our colleagues in Community Outreach and Engagement, and we have several clinical trials and research studies dedicated to improving access to sub-specialty care.
I am most grateful for such fantastic colleagues and friends. We are, of course, appreciative of our wonderful colleagues in other divisions and Departments, and of our dedicated and outstanding nurses, division staff, research coordinators, and other team members. Our work is challenging, but very rewarding, and it is an honor to serve.
Best,
Karen Ballen MD
CLINICAL PROGRAM
EDUCATION UPDATES
Update from Program Director, Trish Millard
The UVA Hematology/Oncology fellowship program admits 4 fellows per year, for a total of 12. The three-year training program prepares fellows to be board-eligible in both hematology and oncology. The first year of fellowship is principally clinical training, including service months on inpatient malignant hematology, classical hematology, and oncology consults. Fellows participate in 6-month continuity clinics throughout their three years. The second and third years of the fellowship include greater elective time for clinical sub-specialization and research work.
In 2025, we welcomed first-year fellows from the University of Virginia: TJ Babalola, Jacob Friedberg, Kathryn Fortune, and Kenan Michaels. While we knew this group was special, we have been immensely impressed by the fellows’ skilled and compassionate work. We are so grateful for the members of our fellowship family.
Under faculty mentorship, all fellows complete a clinical research workshop in their first year, culminating in an application for internal grant support. This funding allows our fellows to be productive and successful in their academic pursuits in years 2 and 3. We are very proud that our fellows routinely present at national conferences, with a recent example being third-year fellow Valerie Tran presenting at ASH 2025 for her project, “Area Deprivation Index as a Predictor of Survival and Treatment Disparities in Older Adults with Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Population-Based Study.” Each year, one fellow is awarded funding from the generosity of the Weiss Family. Current third-year fellow, Fabian Bolte, is conducting research with Weiss Family support on the Analysis of extracellular vesicles in patients with advanced renal cell cancer.
As we enter the spring of the academic year, we look forward to the fellowship graduation. Fabian Bolte will join the faculty here at UVA as a clinical investigator in GI oncology. Sean Dougherty will join the faculty here at UVA as a clinical investigator in thoracic oncology. Gautham Prakash is moving to the West Coast, where he will serve as a community oncologist with GU and GI focus at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, CA. Valerie Tran will join the faculty at the INOVA Schar Cancer Center, specializing in acute leukemia. We are incredibly proud of our third-year fellows and are certain they are ready to embark on their careers.
RESEARCH
Disease Sections
Medical Oncology by Robert Dreicer, MD
The medical oncology section concluded a productive clinical and academic year. At the beginning of the new academic year, the section welcomed Dr. Jack Masur to join the Division, supporting the GU and Head and Neck disease teams.
Our GU Medical Oncology program (Drs. Jack Masur, Michael Devitt, Paul Viscuse, William Skelton, and Dreicer), in collaboration with our colleagues in the Division of Nuclear Medicine, has activated and enrolled patients in a novel Phase I/II theragnostic trial of an Actinium PSMA molecule, which has received referrals from all over the US.
Our thoracic medical oncology program (Drs. Elizabeth Gentzler/Richard Hall) enrolled multiple patients in the phase III clinical trial led by Dr. Richard Hall at UVA evaluating datopotamab deruxtecan (D-DXd), an antibody-drug conjugate targeting TROP2, in patients with NSCLC. Dr. Hall was a co-author of the manuscript published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in January 2025, and this therapy was FDA-approved as a new treatment for patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer in June 2025 (https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO-24-01544).
The thoracic oncology team successfully recruited two new faculty members who will join in late summer 2026. Sean Dougherty, MD, is a third-year fellow and current chief hematology/oncology fellow at UVA and a former 2022-2023 UVA internal medicine chief resident. Dena Rinehart, MD, is a third-year fellow and a current chief fellow in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins University. Sean and Dena will join the thoracic oncology program as clinical investigators, focusing on expanding the clinical trial research program, population health research, and clinical care.
Faculty from the section of medical oncology held the first, and now annual, 2025 Interdisciplinary Oncology: A Case-Based Update in November of 2025, with more than 120 physicians, APPs, RNs, and Pharmacists in attendance.
Ongoing recruitments include breast and sarcoma oncology clinical investigators.
Melanoma/and related disorders
Drs. Liz Gaughan and Varinder Kaur
APP: Jenea Brown
Breast Medical Oncology
Drs. Christiana Brenin, Patrick Dillon, and Trish Millard
APP: Paul “Mike” Marshall and Melody Noble
Thoracic Medical Oncology
Drs. Ryan Gentzler and Richard Hall
APP: Marie Thomas
Head and Neck Oncology
Drs. Jack Masur and Varinder Kaur
APP: Jenea Brown
Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology and Unknown Primary Neoplasms
Drs. Tri Le, Paul Kunk, Muneeb Rehman, and Matthew Reilley
APP: Jenna Ally, Jenna Campo and Susie Herndon
Genitourinary Medical Oncology
Drs. Michael Devitt, Robert Dreicer, Jack Masur, William Paul Skelton, Paul Viscuse
APP: Katie Stiebing
Sarcoma
Drs. Ludimila Cavalcante and Michael Douvas
APP: Susie Herndon
Infusion/Urgent Care
APP: Elizabeth Coyman, Jessica Denomme, Stephanie Good, Elizabeth Lester
Stem Cell Transplant by Karen Ballen
The Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program continues to expand our clinical and research programs. We treated over 200 transplant and CAR T cell patients last year. We perform transplants for plasma cell dyscrasias, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, acute leukemias, myelodysplastic syndrome, myeloproliferative disorders, and bone marrow failure states. Our chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T program is growing, and we have both FDA-approved and research CAR T products for myeloma, lymphoma, and acute leukemia. We had another successful Federation for Accreditation of Cell Therapy (FACT) inspection this year. We held our annual BMT Patient Picnic with over 300 attendees, and an emotional meeting between a patient and a volunteer stem cell donor. A major advance in our field is the development of new treatment strategies to prevent graft-versus-host disease, which allow us to perform mismatched transplants safely.
Stem Cell Transplant
Drs. Karen Ballen, Joseph Clara, Krithika Shanmugasundaram, Indumathy Varadarajan
and Leonid Volodin
APP: Hania Bushnaq-Aloul, Jessica Kassay-McAllister, and Kristen Noonan
APP Inpatient: Ryan Boyles, Mary Faith Dudley, Kristine
Gillis, Erin Harr, Jordyn Sewell, and Philip DeTrana
Hematologic Malignancies
The Hematologic Malignancy Program manages patients with lymphoma, leukemia, bone marrow failure disorders, and myeloma. We have an active clinical research program and have published collaborative research in a high-impact journal over the last year. We are a high-performing team at the American Society of Hematology’s annual meeting. In 2025, Hematologic Malignancy providers participated in 26 collaborative research presentations and UVA research presentations.
The hematologic malignancy section consists of the following members:
Lymphoma and CLL
Emily Ayers, Craig Portell, Nate Roberts, Michael Douvas (for young adults), and Michael E. Williams,
APP: Kim Conrad, Allyson Dalton, Christina Ide
Myeloma
John Densmore
APP: Allyson Dalton and Christina Ide
Leukemia
Michael Douvas (for young adults), Francine Garrett-Bakelman, Michael Keng, and Daniel Reed
APP: Kim Conrad and Kirsten Hinson
Classical Hematology
Classical Hematology has continued to grow and evolve over the past year, strengthening our clinical programs, expanding access to care, and advancing innovative initiatives to improve patient outcomes. As the primary academic referral center for much of Virginia and the surrounding region, we remain dedicated to providing expert, comprehensive care for patients with complex and rare classical hematologic disorders. Our faculty continue to play an integral role in medical education across the institution, contributing lectures, conferences, and mentorship to trainees and colleagues in multiple disciplines.
We were pleased to welcome Lauren Fry, PA, an experienced and highly skilled provider who joined our team last year and has already become an invaluable contributor to our clinical mission.
Dr. Louise Man continues to lead the grant-supported Adult Comprehensive Bleeding Disorders Clinic. She and the Bleeding Disorders team have maintained their outreach clinic in Bristol, expanding access to specialized care in the region. She also serves as the site’s primary investigator for a multicenter clinical trial investigating emicizumab-kxwh as a hemostatic treatment in combination with standard immunosuppressive therapy for patients with newly diagnosed acquired hemophilia A.
Dr. Hillary Maitland’s pilot project aimed at reducing post-operative thromboembolic events in the bariatric surgery population identified low post-discharge mobility as a major contributor to post-operative morbidity. In response, we are implementing more rigorous graded activity goals for this high-risk population. Building on this work, our team is developing a mobility-focused initiative within the inpatient Oncology population, aiming to improve length of stay and reduce hospital-associated thromboembolism.
Dr. Kelly Davidson continues to lead the Adult Comprehensive Sickle Cell Clinic and is collaborating with colleagues across Virginia to establish a state-mandated registry for patients with sickle cell disease. At the national level, she remains actively engaged in advocacy through her service on the American Society of Hematology Committee on Practice, addressing critical issues in hematology practice and policy.
The Iron Deficiency Anemia Clinic, led by NP Tammy Tedsen, continues to provide patients with rapid access to evaluation and treatment, significantly improving the timeliness of care.
We also want to recognize the outstanding clinical excellence and dedication of NPs Katie Gabler and Julie Armatas. Their expertise, leadership in patient care, and commitment to our multidisciplinary mission are essential to the strength and daily success of our program.
We are actively recruiting for two additional faculty positions and sincerely appreciate everyone’s support and engagement as we continue to grow our programs and expand our impact.
Classical Hematology
Drs. Kelly Davidson, Valery Kogler, Hillary Maitland, and Louise Man
APP: Julie Armatas, Lauren Fry, Katie Gabler, and Tammy Tedsen
Basic Research
Basic Research in the Division of Hematology & Oncology has expanded recently with several new extramural grants and recruitments, under the leadership of Drs. Charles Chalfant and Thomas Loughran received a $13M P01 grant (CA302570) from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute to study Ceramide-Directed Therapeutics for the Treatment of AML. Drs. David Feith, Thomas Loughran, Anuradha Illendula, Ipsita Pal, John Manavalan, Todd Fox, Kallesh Danappa Jayappa, and Jihane Khalife also combined to publish a manuscript in Blood on a new polymeric nanoparticle for the delivery of Romidepsin with an improved safety profile—additionally, Drs. Loughran and Feith published two collaborative papers in Blood Advances on leukemia. In addition to the strong efforts of researchers studying leukemia, Dr. Chalfant received a new NIH R01 grant to study metabolic reprogramming in macrophages, which is linked to the regulation of the tumor microenvironment and tumor sensitivity to immune checkpoint inhibitors. His group also reported the mechanistic underpinnings for a novel long non-coding RNA (CyKILR), which is a global driver of tumorigenic cellular pathways in NSCLC with specific oncogenotypes. Dr. Chalfant also received a new MERIT Review grant from the Veterans Administration (RD001334), slated to start April 1, 20226, to study the role of RNA splicing in lung cancer, which will collaborate with Drs. Ryan Gentzler, Craig Slingluff, Timothy Bullock, and Ileana Mauldin. Dr. Chalfant also renewed his Senior Research Career Scientist Award from the Veterans Administration (RD002739) for an additional 7 years.
Dr. Danielle Cook published a manuscript in Frontiers of Immunology on how a checkpoint antibody receptor-modified ARmed CAR T circumvents the suppressive immunome in GBM.
The Basic Research Section of our division continues to expand. It welcomes Dr. Bishal Paudel as an academic-track Assistant Professor, who will study the role of sphingolipids in complex biological systems and their relationship to various cancers.
UVA Community Oncology
The UVA Community Oncology Section serves patients with a spectrum of hematologic and solid tumor diagnoses in Fishersville, Culpeper, and Gainesville (Northern Virginia).
Our team transitioned to Community Health as of January 1, 2025. We have continued to collaborate closely with the main medical center and remain involved in comprehensive specialty tumor board programs, enabling optimized care closer to home.
We continue to have an amazing team of pharmacists, nurse navigators, nurses, nutritionists, social workers, and access associates who enable comprehensive care in the community.
We have opened our first clinical trial at the Culpeper and Gainesville offices for breast cancer, the POWER II trial, and will be adding additional offerings in the coming years.
Fishersville
Drs. Emanuel Cirenza, Gwenalyn Garcia, and Nicholas Paphitis
APP: Corah Kaufman
Culpeper
Drs. Ahmed Khalil, Ali Mahjoub, and Pranav Patel
APP: Michelle Otto
Gainesville
Drs. Ahmed Khalil, Ali Mahjoub, and Pranav Patel
Advanced Practice Providers
Three Oncology APP managers lead the team: Jess Kassay-McAllister, DNP; Susie Herndon, NP; and Liz Lester, DNP, with additional support provided by Chizoro Taylor, APP Director, and Bill Lombardi, DNP, Administrator of the UVA Center for Advanced Practice (CAP). There are currently 34 APPs in Hematology/Oncology.
We welcomed two new faces to our team this year:
Kirsten Hinson- APP Acute Care/Inpatient (NE)
Lauren Fry- APP Medical Oncology
(Jess Kassay-McAllister, Susie Herndon, and Elizabeth Lester, APP Supervisors)
PUBLICATIONS
Total number of publications in 2025-2026: 120
A Multicenter Open-Label Randomized Phase II Study of Osimertinib With and Without Ramucirumab in Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor-Naïve EGFR-Mutant Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (RAMOSE trial). J Clin Oncol. 2025 Feb;43(4):403–11. Le X, Patel JD, Shum E, Baik C, Sanborn RE, Shu CA, Kim C, Fidler MJ, Hall R, Elamin YY, Tu J, Blumenschein G, Zhang J, Gibbons D, Gay C, Mohindra NA, Chae Y, Boumber Y, Sabari J, Santana-Davila R, Rogosin S, Herzberg B, Creelan B, Pellini B, Tanvetyanon T, Heeke S, Hernandez M, Gray JE, Saltos A, Heymach JV.
Acid ceramidase inhibition enhances BCL-2 targeting in venetoclax-resistant acute myeloid leukemia via a cytotoxic integrated stress response. bioRxiv. 2025 June 7;2025.06.06.657881. Ung J, Tan SF, Shaw JJP, Taori M, Deddens TM, Venancio G da C, Montgomery MM, Hagen JT, Aruleba RT, Golla UR, Sharma A, Paudel BB, Lee ISA, Ramamoorthy B, Janes KA, Garrett-Bakelman F, Cabot MC, Fisher-Wellman KH, Fox TE, Claxton DF, Chalfant CE, Feith DJ, Loughran TP
ASO Author Reflections: Ninety Days of Preoperative Endocrine Therapy Informs Patient and Physician Preference for Radiation Therapy. Ann Surg Oncol. 2025 Oct;32(11):8180–1. M Turkheimer L, Millard T, L Showalter S.
Cell Type Specific Suppression of Hyper-Recombination by Human RAD18 Is Linked to Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen K164 Ubiquitination. Biomolecules. 2025 Jan 20;15(1):150. Rogers CB, Leung W, Baxley RM, Kram RE, Wang L, Buytendorp JP, Le K, Largaespada DA, Hendrickson EA, Bielinsky AK
Evaluation of Gemtuzumab Ozogamicin and Anthracycline Dosing for Favorable Risk Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Eur J Haematol. 2025 Mar;114(3):481–94. Mort JF, Brighton D, DiBenedetto S, Wells L, Clark SM, Reid J, Patel I, Jackson C, Yelvington B, Miller R, Perciavalle M, Walsh K, Wolfe H, Locke SC, Zeidner JF, Duong VH, Reed DR, Dholaria B, LeBlanc TW, Keng M, Horton B, El Chaer F.
It is time to eliminate the one-hour corrected count increment in the diagnostic workup of platelet transfusion refractoriness. Transfusion. 2025 Aug;65(8):1553–5. Glover R, Yeboah B, Vassallo RR, Stolla M, Panch SR, Khan J, Kogler VJ, Luckey CJ, Gorham JD
Loncastuximab in high-risk and heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: a real-world analysis from 21 US centers. Haematologica. 2025 Mar 1;110(3):706–14. Zelikson V, Gurumurthi A, Sawalha Y, Annunzio K, Saha A, Dong N, Qualls D, Amoozgar B, Kahl B, Baird J, Challa P, Huntington SF, Santos J, Bair S, Narkhede M, Li S, Frosch Z, Ho C, Smith SD, Winter A, Landsburg D, Furqan F, Hamadani M, Baird K, Romancik J, Alharthy H, Law J, Bojanini L, Advani R, Hu B, Johnson PC, Grover NS, Merril M, Crombie JL, Shafagati N, Sterling C, Nastoupil LJ, Epperla N, Ayers EC.
Molecular advances and therapeutic potential in leveraging hepcidin. Trends Mol Med. 2025 Nov 12;S1471-4914(25)00258-8. Young S, Davidson K, Petri WA.
Outpatient axicabtagene ciloleucel for relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma: ZUMA-24 primary analysis. Am J Cancer Res. 2025;15(8):3417–33. Leslie LA, Baird JH, Flinn IW, Tees M, Hoda D, Deol A, Young P, McClune B, Varadarajan I, Essell J, Fanning S, Simmons G, Clark W, Rapoport AP, Rodriguez TE, Winters JN, Davis M, Miao HM, Ray M, Fang X, Kim JJ, Oluwole OO.
EVENTS
View Full Issue of the April 2026 Edition of the Medicine Matters Newsletter
Filed Under: Basic Research, Clinical Research, DOM in the News, Education, In the Know, New Faces, New Places, News and Notes, Notable Achievements, Publications, Research, Top News