CLL Program @ Columbia

Dr. Lamanna is a pioneering investigator and internationally recognized leader in CLL. As the inaugural incumbent of the Judy Horrigan Professorship of Medicine, she has expanded Columbia’s CLL research efforts, elevated the public profile of the disease, and advanced some of the most promising avenues of research for its treatment. Her work has been widely published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Blood, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of Clinical Oncology, eJHaem, Blood Advances, and Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma & Leukemia, shaping both academic research and frontline patient care. She is a frequent invited speaker at major national and international forums, including the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the European Hematology Association (EHA), and the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO), where she presents on targeted therapies, emerging agents, and personalized approaches to CLL treatment. Through her innovative research, clinical expertise, and leadership in clinical trials, Dr. Lamanna has helped redefine CLL as a chronic, manageable condition for many patients. While curative therapy remains a goal, therapies developed through trials she has led at Columbia have significantly improved patient outcomes and life expectancy. A dedicated patient advocate, she is deeply committed to education, access to expert care, and delivering both cutting-edge treatment and compassionate clinical care.

Dr. Wang is the inaugural Roberts Family Professor of Medicine (in Hematology-Oncology and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center). Working in tandem with Dr. Lamanna, Dr. Wang is helping to expand the breadth and influence of our work in CLL, ratifying our leadership role in both the clinical work and pioneering research in CLL. Dr. Wang’s work focuses particularly on the role of RNA metabolism in CLL and related diagnoses — she is especially interested in mutations in splicing factors and regulators that control RNA epigenetics — that is, the changes in the expressions of genes, which do not alter the genes themselves. Her aim is to identify the molecular consequences of aberrant RNA processing, and then to use that knowledge to develop more effective, targeted treatments for leukemia and lymphoma.

Dr. Andrew Lipsky is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center who specializes in treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoma. He has expanded the CLL program to Westchester, broadening patients’ access to leading research and comprehensive care. His research focuses on cancer genomics and the development of new therapies for CLL, leveraging advanced bioinformatics to study how cancer cells evolve during treatment and translating those insights into innovative clinical trials and treatments.

Dr. Brandon DaSilva is a second-year hematology oncology fellow who will be dedicating two years of clinical research time in the CLL program. He received his BS from Georgetown, and his MD from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine. Dr. DaSilva is going to spearhead a new investigator-initiated multicenter clinical trial, evaluating the addition of a novel agent to eradicate measurable residual disease in CLL patients who have received frontline standard-of-care therapy.

Katherine Bloomer is the Senior Program Coordinator for the Leukemia Service and CLL Program. She supports the program both administratively and on a research level by facilitating the care patients with hematologic malignancies receive. Her administrative work focuses on advancing the program’s programmatic growth, streamlining communications, and supporting the team’s activities. On the research front, Katherine focuses on CLL clinical trials and biorepository recruitment, building the foundation of clinical data and biospecimens that contribute to expanded research, the development of new treatments, and strengthened cross-institutional collaboration.