Emily B Heikamp

I am an instructor in pediatric hematology-oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where I work with Dr. Scott Armstrong to discover targeted epigenetic therapies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The major focus of my work is to understand the molecular mechanisms by which oncogenic fusion proteins drive the development of leukemia and how to disrupt their activity therapeutically. I earned my medical degree and PhD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. As an MD-PhD student in the immunology program at Hopkins, my work led to several publications, including a first-author paper in Nature Immunology and a US patent. Prior to joining the MD-PhD program at Hopkins, I studied as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where I earned an M.Sc. in Medical Oncology. I received my undergraduate degree from Duke University, where I studied as an Angier B. Duke Scholar on a full-tuition merit scholarship. Research has always been an integral part of my training, even during my clinical years as a resident in the integrated research pathway at Baylor College of Medicine, and as a fellow in Dr. Scott Armstrong’s lab at Dana-Farber. In Dr. Armstrong’s lab, I discovered that the Menin-MLL1 interaction is a novel molecular dependency in AML driven by oncogenic fusion proteins involving the nucleoporin 98 (NUP98) gene. This project culminated in a first author manuscript was recently published by the journal Blood. My future work will expand these discoveries by defining the mechanism by which disrupting the epigenetic landscape in NUP98 fusion-driven leukemia leads to myeloid differentiation. The overarching goal of my career is to become an independent investigator and leader of my own laboratory, aiming to translate research discoveries that will transform clinical practice in oncology.