Aniruddha Deshpande Archives - Sanford Burnham Prebys
Institute News

How community collaboration shapes leukemia research at Sanford Burnham Prebys

AuthorMiles Martin
Date

October 4, 2022

Since 2020, Todd and Rena Johnson, co-founders of the Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation (LTJF), have helped fund the research of Associate Professor Ani Deshpande, PhD

But it all started with their son Luke. He had a very rare subtype of acute myeloid leukemia, one of the most difficult-to-treat cancers, and, sadly, he passed away from the disease in 2016. This inspired the Johnsons to become involved with fundraising and advocacy for cancer research.

“Our foundation started with a fundraising golf tournament to honor Luke, and that was about taking something so horrific and so horrible and finding a way to turn it into something positive,” says Rena. “If you can take that tragedy and put a positive spin on it, then everything around Luke and his name and his memory becomes positive.”

How “the stars and planets aligned” to bring the Johnsons to the Institute

In a remarkable coincidence, the Johnsons discovered on their first visit to the Institute that Deshpande’s research focuses on AF10 fusion AML, an extremely rare subtype of the disease that accounts for about 5 percent of cases. It’s also the subtype of AML that Luke had.

“It was a goosebumps-raising moment,” says Todd. “Once we visited Ani and saw his lab, we realized there was a lot more in common with our story and his research than we had realized before.”

“The stars and planets aligned and brought us to Ani,” adds Rena. 

Luke Tatsu Johnson

Luke Tatsu Johnson

As well as helping fund Deshpande’s research through LTJF and their partnership with the Rally! Foundation, the Johnsons are also on the Community Advisory Board (CAB) for the Institute’s Cancer Center, which advocates for cancer research by engaging the community. 

“The CAB does such a wonderful job of connecting the community with the scientists, and we’re so excited to be involved in that,” says Todd. “That’s fundamentally what we do as a foundation—we support the folks doing this work so that children and families down the road can have a different outcome from Luke’s.”
 

AML research “needs more support and needs more funding”

The Johnsons’ support helped the AML research team discover a new potential treatment for AML, which is currently in preclinical studies, after which they hope it will advance to clinical trials. The research team maintains that it would have been impossible to secure the NIH grants necessary to do these studies without the jump start given by the LTJF and the Rally! Foundation.

“We couldn’t do what we do without the Johnsons’ support,” says Deshpande. “We are so grateful to have them in our corner, and we’re confident that our work will help improve outcomes for kids like Luke down the line.”

Despite this progress, more research into AML and other leukemias is still needed. Leukemia is the most common cancer in children and teens. About 4,000 children are diagnosed with leukemia each year, and AML accounts for about a third of these cases.
 

Studying AML from all angles

To tackle this pressing problem, the Institute has established an AML disease team composed of researchers across labs and clinician partners. The team’s research falls into several large categories, including studying the genetics of AML, studying how the disease works in animal models and working to develop drugs that can target specific mutations associated with the disease, which are numerous. 

“AML has many different subtypes, so it’s been difficult for researchers to make major advances to treat all cases of AML,” says Deshpande, who co-leads the AML team with Professor Peter D. Adams, PhD “Most patients with AML are given the same treatments that have been used since the ’70s, which is why we want to look at AML from as many angles as possible.”

In addition to being difficult to treat, it is also challenging to get funding for AML research, particularly for the rarer subtypes. This makes the support of foundations such as LTJF even more vital to researchers like Deshpande. 

“This is exactly why AML research needs more support and needs more funding, because this is a much more difficult disease than other forms of leukemia,” says Todd. “Many patients don’t have positive outcomes, and the only way to turn that pendulum is to intensify our efforts and increase the amount of research being done.”

Institute News

Three Sanford Burnham Prebys faculty receive promotions

AuthorMiles Martin
Date

June 30, 2022

Sanford Burnham Prebys is proud to announce the promotion of three of our faculty from assistant to associate professor. 

The promoted faculty, all from the Institute’s NCI-designated Cancer Center, include Ani Deshpande, PhD, Brooke Emerling, PhD and Charles Spruck, PhD

Ani Deshpande, PhD

Deshpande studies developmental processes in stem cells that get hijacked by cancer, focusing specifically on acute myeloid leukemia, one of the most common types of blood cancer. Earlier last year, Deshpande published a study with researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealing that CRISPR gene editing can sometimes favor cells with cancer mutations, encouraging a cautious approach when using CRISPR therapies for certain cancers

Deshpande joined the Institute in 2015. Prior to that, he held positions at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School.

Brooke Emerling, PhD

Emerling studies the metabolism of cancer cells, specifically how certain signaling proteins can contribute to the uninhibited growth typical of tumors. Emerling recently received a $2.3 million grant from the NIH to continue her work over the next four years.

Emerling joined the faculty at Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2016. Prior to that, she held positions at Weill Cornell Medicine and Harvard Medical School.

Charles Spruck, PhD 

Spruck develops new, effective, nontoxic treatments for patients with advanced cancers. Specifically, his recent studies have focused on the potential to treat cancer with viral mimicry, which tricks the body into thinking it has a viral infection, stimulating immune responses that can help the body fight cancer and improve the effects of other treatments. 

Spruck joined the Institute in 2010. Prior to that, he held positions at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and Scripps Research.

Institute News

A year in review: Our top 10 discoveries of 2019

AuthorMonica May
Date

December 4, 2019

At Sanford Burnham Prebys, we uncover the origins of disease and launch bold new strategies that lay the foundation for achieving cures. This year our scientists made significant progress—revealing new insights into how we treat some of the deadliest cancers, address neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and more.

Read on to learn more about our top 10 discoveries of the year. To receive more frequent updates on our discoveries, subscribe to our monthly newsletter at the bottom of this page.

  1. One-two punch drug combination offers hope for pancreatic cancer therapy. Ze’ev Ronai, PhD, identified a combination of two anti-cancer compounds that shrank pancreatic tumors in mice—supporting the immediate evaluation of the drugs in a clinical trial. The study was published in Nature Cell Biology.
  2. Targeted treatment shrinks deadly pediatric brain tumors. Robert Wechsler-Reya, PhD, reported that a targeted therapy that blocks a protein called LSD1 shrank tumors in mice with a form of pediatric brain cancer known as medulloblastoma. LSD1 inhibitors are currently under evaluation in clinical trials for other cancers, which could speed their potential path to children. The study was published in Nature Communications.
  3. Epigenetic change causes fruit fly babies to inherit diet-induced heart disease. Rolf Bodmer, PhD, showed that reversing an epigenetic modification or over-expressing two genes protected fruit fly children and grandchildren from the negative heart effects of their parents’ fatty diet. These findings help explain how obesity-related heart failure is inherited and uncover potential targets for treatment. The study was published in Nature Communications.
  4. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research reveals new treatment approach. Huaxi Xu, PhD, extended the survival of mice with ALS-like symptoms by elevating levels of a protein called membralin using a gene therapy approach. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigations.
  5. How prostate cancer becomes treatment resistant. Jorge Moscat, PhD, and Maria Diaz-Meco, PhD, identified how prostate cancer transforms into an aggressive, treatment-resistant subtype called neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) following treatment with anti-androgen therapy. Their findings uncover new therapeutic avenues that could prevent this transformation from occurring and reveal that an FDA-approved drug holds promise as an NEPC treatment. The study was published in Cancer Cell.
  6. Boosting muscle stem cells to treat muscular dystrophy and aging muscles. Alessandra Sacco, PhD, uncovered a molecular signaling pathway that regulates how muscle stem cells decide whether to self-renew or differentiate—an insight that could lead to muscle-boosting therapeutics for muscular dystrophies or age-related muscle decline. The study was published in Nature Communications.
  7. Functional hair follicles grown from stem cells. Alexey Terskikh, PhD, created natural-looking hair that grows through the skin using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a major scientific achievement that could revolutionize the hair growth industry. Stemson Therapeutics has licensed the technology.
  8. Potential targeted treatment for acute myeloid leukemia identified. Ani Deshpande, PhD, showed that a protein called BMI1 is a promising drug target for an AML subtype in which two normally separate genes fuse together. The findings, published in Experimental Hematology, provide a rationale for evaluating a BMl1-inhibiting drug that is currently in clinical development as a potential treatment for this subtype.
  9. Antimicrobial protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease. An immune system protein that usually protects the body from pathogens is abnormally produced in the brain during Parkinson’s disease, Wanda Reynolds, PhD, reported in Free Radical Biology & Medicine. The discovery indicates that developing a drug that blocks this protein, called myeloperoxidase (MPO), may help people with Parkinson’s disease.
  10. Digestion-aiding herbs alter gut microbiome. Scott Peterson, PhD, found that four herbs—turmeric, ginger, long pepper and black pepper—promoted strong shifts in the gut bacteria that are known to regulate metabolism, providing insights that could help us protect our health. The study was published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Institute News

SBP researchers awarded Padres Pedal the Cause collaborative grants

AuthorSusan Gammon
Date

July 31, 2017

Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Research (SBP) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded five collaborative grants with the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. The collaborative research projects are focused on cancers including B-cell lymphomas, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer. The awards are part of the $750,000 being distributed from proceeds raised by the 2016 cycling event.

“I am proud of our scientists and our partnership with Padres Pedal the Cause,” says Garth Powis, D. Phil., director of SBP’s NCI-designated Cancer Center. “Since its inception, Pedal the Cause has focused on creating a community event that engages cyclists and volunteers to raise money to advance innovative cancer research. We look forward to using these grants to make advances in our labs that will hopefully impact the health of cancer patients now and in the future.”

In November 2016, more than 1,500 riders, hundreds of volunteers, donors and sponsors took part in the cycling event. SBP was pleased to host water station for riders during the event, and many riders even stopped to take fun photos in front of our SBP bright orange backdrop.

SBP’s funded projects are listed below:

“Oncogenic Regulation of B-Lymphomagenesis by the Chromatin Modulator DOT1L”
Bing Ren, PhD (Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health) Aniruddha Deshpande, PhD (Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center)

“Decoding Colon Cancers Using Boolean Principles”
Pradipta Ghosh, MD (Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health) Debashis Sahoo, PhD (Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health), Manuel Perucho, PhD (Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center)

“An Over-Expressed GPCR in Pancreatic Cancer Associated Fibroblasts as a Novel Therapeutic Target”
Paul Insel, MD (Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health) Kristiina Vuori, MD, PhD (Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center)

“Identification of Genes Critical for the Production of T-cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells for Development of “Off-the-Shelf” T-cells Immunotherapies”
Dan S. Kaufman, MD, PhD (Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health) Sumit K. Chanda, PhD (Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center)

“Targeting Cellular Mechanotransduction in Breast Cancer Metastasis”
Jing Yang, PhD (Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health) Elena Pasquale, PhD (Sanford Burnham Prebys Cancer Center)

The fifth annual Padres Pedal the Cause event takes place November 11-12, 2017, at Petco Park and will feature courses of various distances for all skill levels, a stationary bike zone, virtual riding, a children’s ride as well as numerous volunteer opportunities for all those who want to make a difference in the fight against cancer.

Registration for the 2017 event is open. New this year, Padres Pedal is only the second cycling event to ride over the Coronado Bay Bridge.

For more information and registration please visit www.gopedal.org 

Join us on this year’s ride as a rider or volunteer. We’d love to have you on the team! Register today: Team SBP – Sanford Burnham Prebys 

Institute News

Happy Holidays from Sanford-Burnham!

Authorpbartosch
Date

December 23, 2014

As the year draws to a close, we look back on Sanford-Burnham’s many achievements in 2014. Over the year, our scientists published numerous papers in high-profile journals; secured significant grant funding; partnered with companies, institutes, and nonprofit organizations from across the country and the globe; and they took important steps toward our ultimate goal – to have a tangible impact on human health. Here are 14 accomplishments of 2014 that we are proud to share with you: Continue reading “Happy Holidays from Sanford-Burnham!”