Meet the Finalists of the 2025 ISSNAF Young Investigator Paola Campese Award
- chiaragallo7
- Oct 15
- 6 min read
Established by Stefania and Vito Campese in 2011, the Paola Campese award for research in hematologic malignencies is in memory of their young, talented and generous daughter Paola.
We are delighted to share and celebrate the outstanding finalists for the 2025 edition:
Nicoletta Cieri
Sara Piccinelli
Maria Caterina Rotiroti
These three remarkable researchers will present their innovative work to the jury, chaired by Prof. Alessandra Ferrajoli (MD Anderson Cancer Center) and joined by Prof. Marco Ruella (University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Paolo Strati (The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center).
The winner will be revealed during the ISSNAF 2025 Annual Event in Washington, D.C., on November 6.
NICOLETTA CIERI
Nicoletta Cieri, MD, PhD is a physician-scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on understanding and harnessing the power of the immune system to fight blood cancers while reducing the harmful side effects that can occur after bone marrow transplantation.
Originally from Italy, Dr. Cieri earned her MD and PhD at San Raffaele University in Milan, where she characterized a new type of long-lived immune cell known as “memory stem T cell,” which has become a key model for developing next-generation cancer immunotherapies.
At Dana-Farber, she now applies cutting-edge genomic and computational tools to personalize transplant and immune-based treatments, with the goal of improving outcomes and preventing complications for patients with leukemia and other blood disorders.
Her work, published in leading journals such as Nature Biotechnology, has earned international recognition, including the Jon J. van Rood Award from the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation and career awards from the American Society of Hematology and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Research Focus
Dr. Nicoletta Cieri’s research explores how the immune system can be guided to fight blood cancers safely and effectively. She focuses on allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT), a procedure in which donor immune cells are used to eliminate cancer. While powerful, this therapy can also trigger harmful reactions, such as graft-versus-host disease, when donor cells attack healthy tissues.
To address this, Dr. Cieri combines immunology, genomics, and computational biology to map how T cells recognize and respond to different targets in each patient. Her goal is to distinguish the signals that drive beneficial anti-cancer responses from those that cause harmful side effects. This knowledge allows her to design more precise therapies, select the most compatible donors, and guide the development of next-generation immune-based treatments.
Beyond transplantation, her work informs broader immunotherapy strategies, including cancer vaccines and CAR T cells and adoptive T cell therapies. By translating fundamental discoveries into practical, patient-centered solutions, Dr. Cieri’s research aims to improve survival, reduce complications, and make immune-based therapies safer and more effective for individuals with blood cancers.
About Her
Dr. Nicoletta Cieri, an Italian-trained hematologist and physician-scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, investigates how T cells can be harnessed to eliminate blood cancers while minimizing transplant-related toxicity. Her work bridges immunology, genomics, and computational biology to advance precision approaches to immune-based therapy. She is deeply committed to mentorship and to translating scientific discovery into safer, more effective treatments for patients with hematologic malignancies.
SARA PICCINELLI
Sara is a dedicated physician-scientist specializing in cancer immunology and cellular therapy. Her work focuses on translating immunological discoveries into innovative, targeted treatments for high-risk hematologic malignancies, with a particular emphasis on relapsed and refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
With a strong clinical background and a deep commitment to translational research, Sara integrates cutting-edge approaches in cancer biology and immunotherapy to develop next-generation, cell-based therapies. Her research spans CAR T and CAR NK cell therapies, regulatory T cell (Treg) immunotherapy, and advancements in bone marrow transplantation techniques.
Sara earned her medical degree and completed her hematology training at the University of Perugia, Italy, where she became deeply involved in clinical trials exploring haploidentical transplantation and adoptive immunotherapy for patients with high-risk acute leukemia. She went on to pursue a PhD at the same institution in Clinical and Molecular Medicine, focusing on the biotechnology of bone marrow transplantation—specifically the role of Tregs in B cell reconstitution following haploidentical transplantation.
In 2019, she joined Dr. Scadden lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she studied Treg and NK cell development. Since 2022, she has been a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Romee lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Her current research centers on the development of novel immunotherapies for AML, including CAR T and CAR NK cells, with the goal of improving patient outcomes through translational science and clinical trials.
Research Focus
Therapies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have seen limited progress in recent years, with persistently high relapse rates, especially among older or unfit patients. Addressing AML’s biological complexity requires combination therapies capable of overcoming resistance mechanisms that limit conventional treatments. Among the most common genetic subtypes are NPM1 mutations and KMT2A rearrangements, both of which depend on menin for leukemia development. While menin inhibitors like revumenib have shown promising activity, resistance often emerges due to mutations in the MEN1 gene.
To tackle this, we developed an innovative therapy combining CAR T cell immunotherapy with menin inhibitors to enhance anti-leukemic activity and counteract resistance. We designed two types of CAR T cells: one targeting the NPM1 mutation via a neoantigen, and another targeting CD70, a protein selectively expressed on leukemic cells. In vitro, revumenib significantly enhanced CAR T cytotoxicity without impairing their function. In mouse models, combining revumenib with CAR T cells resulted in superior disease control and significantly prolonged survival compared to either treatment alone, with durable CAR T persistence and a dynamic immune response.
These findings support a robust, innovative strategy capable of overcoming genetic resistance mechanisms and boosting immunotherapy efficacy. This approach has the potential to transform treatment for patients with NPM1-mutant or KMT2A-rearranged AML, offering more durable, personalized options, and paving the way for similar combination strategies in other resistant cancers.
About Her
Passionate about scientific innovation and driven by a commitment to patient care, Sara is dedicated to advancing the field of hematologic immunotherapy and leading transformative research that bridges the gap between laboratory discoveries and clinical application.
Outside the lab, Sara is an avid traveler who enjoys discovering new cultures—an enthusiasm that makes life in Boston especially rewarding thanks to its vibrant international community. She also has a deep appreciation for the humanities, with a particular love for experimental theater and visual arts. Whether attending a play or exploring the latest museum exhibition, she finds inspiration in creative expression and interdisciplinary perspectives.
MARIA CRISTINA ROTIROTI
Maria Caterina Rotiroti is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Robbie Majzner’s laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She received her initial training in Italy and earned her PhD in 2019 from the University of Milano-Bicocca. She conducted her graduate research at the Fondazione Tettamanti in Monza, where she led several projects focused on engineering CAR T cells for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. Her current research focuses on developing strategies to prevent tumor immune escape following adoptive CAR T cell therapy. Recently, she developed a platform that enhances CAR sensitivity to low antigen densities, with the potential to improve efficacy against tumors with heterogeneous antigen expression and to limit immune evasion through antigen downregulation.
Research Focus
My research aims to improve the efficacy of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy against tumors with heterogeneous antigen expression. CAR T cells are engineered immune cells capable of killing tumor cells by recognizing a specific molecule that is present on those cells. While highly effective in certain blood cancers, relapses occur in about half of patients. A major limitation of current CAR T cell therapies is that their effectiveness diminishes when the target molecule is present at low levels, enabling tumor cells to evade detection and develop resistance to the treatment. My research focuses on overcoming this barrier by enhancing CAR T cell sensitivity to low levels of the target molecule. To achieve this, I engineered the intracellular signaling machinery triggered by the CAR upon the engagement of the target molecule. This engineering maneuver has resulted in CAR T cells that are more effective at recognizing and killing cancer cells with low levels of the target molecule, leading to improved tumor control in multiple preclinical models. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop next-generation CAR T cell therapies that can effectively target tumors with heterogeneous expression of the target molecule and provide durable control.
About Her
Maria Caterina Rotiroti is passionate about advancing cancer immunotherapy and translating scientific discoveries into therapies that improve patient outcomes. She values collaboration, mentorship, and inclusive research environments that foster creativity and curiosity.