Clinician Scientist Supporting NCI-funded Clinical Trials at the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center

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PROJECT SUMMARY This application seeks partial salary support for a clinician scientist who is a highly accomplished clinical trialist in the Cancer Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). Mehdi Hamadani, MD, the applicant for this Research Specialist Award, is currently a Professor of Medicine and the Medical and Administrative Director of the Cancer Center’s Clinical Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Program (BMT/CT). As a clinician who devotes two days per week to outpatient malignant hematology clinics and seven to eight weeks per year to inpatient service, Hamadani’s practice includes ~700 active cancer patients, with 147 new patients seen and 49 BMT and CT procedures provided to his clinic patients in 2021. At the same time, Hamadani is an indispensable leader of the clinical research operations of the Cancer Center’s Clinical Trials Office (CTO) and a top accruer to trials. The applicant seeks 30% salary support for the effort he will continue to devote to champion, administer and conduct NCI-funded clinical trials in the MCW Cancer Center, while continuing to build on and improve the BMT/CT clinical research enterprise he has led since 2017. As Chair of the BMT/CT Disease-Oriented Team (DOT), Hamadani provides administrative, clinical and research oversight for the BMT/CT program’s extensive research portfolio, which consistently accrues the most patients among the 14 adult DOTs at the Cancer Center. As part of his institutional leadership duties, Hamadani facilitates the BMT/CT protocol review and activation process and oversees maintenance of ongoing clinical trials. The successes of the BMT/CT program are due in part to his prolific clinical research career, having conceived, launched and conducted over 70 investigator- initiated, cooperative group, and industry-sponsored trials as local or national principal investigator. At the national level, Hamadani plays an active and instrumental role in the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN), an NIH-funded initiative that conducts large multi-institutional trials to improve cellular therapy outcomes. As protocol officer for several BMT CTN trials, three of which are actively enrolling patients, Hamadani is responsible for scientific and regulatory oversight of Network protocols. Given the targeted expansion of NCI-funded clinical trials in the coming years, including those that fall under the BMT/CT program, Dr. Hamadani aims to implement initiatives that will expand and sustain BMT/CT clinical trials research. Support provided by this award would significantly facilitate such efforts and allow him to continue to devote substantial energy and effort to the successful conduct of NCI-funded clinical trials in the MCW Cancer Center.