The Blood Cancer Research Fund has established an endowed fellowship fund for training post-doctoral fellows. The fund shall provide funding to engage postdoctoral fellows in the conduct of research on CLL under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Kipps. In August of 2005, John H. Perry, III, funded our first fellowship position with a significant donation.

Our new BCRF fellow is Dr. Emanuela Ghia. She has obtained her PhD in Hematological Sciences, from University “La Sapienza” of Rome. Dr. Ghia has extensive experience in the role of mutational status in the Immunoglobulin Variable heavy chain genes(IgVH) in CLL.

Since May 2006 she has been a visiting scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Kipps, at Moores UCSD Cancer Center, collaborating with Dr. Rassenti, and members of the BCRF, to investigate a particular subset of CLL patients expressing the variable immunoglobulin gene VH3-21, showing an early disease progression.