USC GEHR CURES
MYELOID MALIGNANCY PROGRAM

Welcome!

The Gehr CURES Myeloid Malignancy Program was established at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2016 through the generosity of the Norbert Gehr Family Foundation. Our mission is to create “quantum leaps” in the field by uncovering therapies aimed at curing myeloid malignancies and preventing the development of acute myeloid leukemia. Myeloid malignancies that lead to acute leukemia include myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), myelofibrosis (MF), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), polycythemia vera, essential thrombocytosis, and other myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs).

Our patients are at the heart of the Gehr CURES mission: to cure myeloid malignancies. We believe that a rigorous understanding of the nature of each individual patient’s disease, from the immune system response to the behavior of the cancer cells at a molecular level, can and should lead us to the answers we seek. We are committed to finding those answers, from better treatment options to permanent cures, hand in hand with our patients and their families. We remain fueled with passion by the experiences and gratitude of patients like Norbert Gehr who fought bravely against myeloid cancer and continue to inspire us to “fight on” every day.

Our research program includes laboratory-based research into the host immune response to aberrant myeloid cells, the epigenetic landscape and how we can modify it to suppress malignant clones, and a new program in which we explore inherited mutations or susceptibilities that lead to the development of myeloid malignancies in families. We are proud to sponsor post-doc research fellows as well as clinical translational fellows in whom we are planting a passion to cure myeloid malignancies.