Academic Committee
The Academic Committee coordinates CAHON awards and assists with organizing and identifying speakers for flagship events, including summer symposium, winter symposium, and New York Oncology Forum.
Hong Zheng, MD, PhD (Chair)
Dr. Hong Zheng is a Professor of Medicine at Penn State University College of Medicine. She received a M.D. in Clinical Medicine from Capital Medical University in China and a Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Connecticut. She completed residency in Internal Medicine at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and clinical fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at Yale University. She is board certified in Hematology and Medical Oncology. Clinically she cares for patients with hematological malignancies and patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Her research focus is transplant immunology and leukemia immunotherapy.
Wanqing Iris Zhi, MD, PhD (Co-Chair)
Wanqing Iris Zhi MD PhD is a board-certified medical oncologist and the medical site director at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) Commack. Her clinical expertise is in breast cancer as a part of modern multidisciplinary care team. She serves as the principle and co-principal investigator (co-PI) on multiple clinical trials opened by MSK’s Breast Medicine, Radiation Oncology, and Integrative Medicine Services. Dr. Wanqing Iris Zhi received her medical degree from Beijing Medical University, and PhD from Stony Brook University. She completed her hematology and medical oncology training at Johns Hopkins University Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her work has been published extensively on peer-reviewed scientific journals. She is a life member of CAHON since 2015 and has been actively involving CAHON community event services. She is a member of ASCO, AACR, Society of Integrative Oncology (SIO). She also serves research committee of SIO and Older Adult Committee of The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.
Minggui Pan, MD, PhD
Dr. Minggui Pan is a Clinical Professor with Stanford Sarcoma Program at Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Medicine Division of Oncology. He was previously the chief of Department of Oncology and Hematology at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara California and staff attending oncologist at Veterans Healthcare Affairs Palo Alto California. Dr. Pan conducts research in cancer biology and immunology and has more than 60 publications. Dr. Pan received his medical degree from Fujian Medical University, a Master’s degree from Peking Union Medical College and a PhD degree from Oregon Health Sciences University. He received medical oncology fellowship training at Stanford University.
Huichun Zhan, MD, MS
Dr. Huichun Zhan, M.D., M.S., is a physician-scientist trained in hematology and oncology. She currently serves as an Attending Physician and a Professor of Medicine (with tenure) at Stony Brook School of Medicine and Northport VA Medical Center. Her research focuses on understanding the complex biology of the tumor microenvironment and the cross-talk between cancer cells and their niche.
Dr. Zhan earned her M.D. from Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China, followed by an M.S. from Cornell University Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences in New York. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and subsequently undertook a fellowship in Hematology-Oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Her clinical interests encompass a broad spectrum within hematology, with a particular focus on conditions such as polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia, and primary myelofibrosis, as well as the intersection between clonal hematopoiesis and cardiovascular diseases.
Dr. Zhan is actively engaged in patient care, research, and education, contributing significantly to the advancement of hematology and oncology both through her clinical practice and academic endeavors.
Elizabeth Budde, MD, PhD
Elizabeth Budde, MD, PhD is a well-recognized clinical expert and researcher in blood cancers. Her academic and clinical interests center on novel treatment for patients with lymphoma and leukemia. As a physician scientist, she leads a group of researchers in her laboratory designing and investigating the use of immunotherapy to treat blood cancers and other diseases.
She leads the Immunotherapy Modality Team and is the executive medical director of the Enterprise Immune Effector Cell Program at City of Hope. She also serves as a member on several national committees including National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for B Cell Lymphoma, NCCN guidelines for Management of Immunotherapy-related Toxicities, and Alliance of American Cancer Institute CAR T Working Group.
Dr. Budde has received many honors and awards for her work. She was chosen as a Special Fellow in Clinical Research awardee by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and an awardee of the Stop Cancer Foundation seed grant in 2016. She is also a recipient of the prestigious Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Clinical Investigator Award (2014-2019). She has published many peer-reviewed articles that have been featured in prominent journals including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology. Blood, Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Immunology. She has also given many invited presentations at national and international meetings on her work.
Dr. Budde holds patents for new drugs currently under development in lymphoma and leukemia. She is the principal investigator of innovative translational research protocols and maintains a dynamic portfolio of clinical trials.
Jeffrey Pu, MD, PhD
Dr. Jeffrey J. Pu received his PhD in Developmental Molecular Cell Biology from New York Medical College and MD from Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine. He completed his Medicine Residency at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, then completed a NIH-supported experimental hematology fellowship at pioneer Dr. Colvin M. Redman’s laboratory and a clinical transfusion medicine/blood banking fellowship at the LFK Research Institute of New York Blood Center. He eventually completed his Hematology/Oncology fellowship, supported by NIHT32 training grant, at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center of Johns Hopkins University. He is certified as an expert of BMF diseases and a preferred hematologist consultant by the Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation.
Dr. Pu’s research interests include hematopoietic mechanism of hematological malignant disease progression, stem cell biology, biomarker translational research, cellular therapy, early phase clinical trials, and HCTT outcome-research. He is credited for first in the world identified and cloned hPD-1 gene and its immune modulating function; identified Kell blood gene-group expression pattern in early hematopoiesis and the cause of Kell alloimmune-induced severe fetal anemia; determined that PNH clone size of 25% as the golden diagnostic standard to predict the risk of significant hemolysis in aplastic anemia (AA); identified the origins of hypocellular myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and AA; and identified PIGN gene as a CIN suppressor in MDS progression and leukemic transformation.
Currently, Dr. Pu is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Tenured), Pathology, & Cancer Biology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. He is the Director of Adult Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program at the University of Arizona, Chief of Leukemias and Bone Marrow Failure Diseases Section, a Full Member of the UA NCI Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Director of MDS Center of Excellence at UACC, Faculty Member of Arizona Biological & Biomedical Science Graduate Program, and the Co-Director of Cancer Biology Course (CBIO555/PHCL555) at CBIO Graduate Program.