Program for Translational Hematology

The Program for Translational Hematology (PTH) is a translational research program at DanStem that aims to improve the immediate and long-term outcome for blood cancer patients by coordinating and strengthening ongoing blood cancer research into a program pursuing research questions and integrating results from bench-to-bedside and bedside-to-bench. The PTH will optimize the use of already approved drugs, identify new targets for therapy, develop novel therapies, test potential novel drugs in pre-clinical models, and collaborate with pharmaceutical companies on developing new drugs and test these and other novel drugs in Phase I-II clinical trials.

To ensure a strong translational capacity of our research, the PTH is building on established collaborations between scientists at DanStem/BRIC and clinicians from the hematological department at Rigshospitalet. The PTH group leaders are:

Bo Porse, DanStem/BRIC/Finsen, Professor and Director
Kristian Helin, DanStem/BRIC/MSKCC, Professor and Chair/Director
Kirsten Grønbæk, BRIC/Rigshospitalet, DanStem-affiliated, Professor, MD
Kim Theilgaard-Mönch, BRIC/Rigshospitalet, DanStem-affiliated, Associate Professor, MD
Krister Wennerberg, BRIC/Rigshospitalet, DanStem-affiliated, Professor
Kyoung-Jae Won, BRIC, DanStem-affiliated, Associate Professor


From left: Krister Wennerberg, Kyoung-Jae Won, Kim Theilgaard-Mönch, Kirsten Grønbæk, Bo Porse and Kristian Helin

The overall goals of the Program in Translational Hematology are to:

  • Have an immediate impact on how patients are treated today
  • Improve the understanding of genetic, epigenetic and molecular mechanisms leading to blood cancers
  • Suggest new validated targets for the development of anti-cancer therapy
  • Strengthening both the short- and long-term research and clinical management of blood cancer
  • Improve the overall outcome of treatment for blood cancer patients

The specific objectives of the Program in Translational Hematology are to:

  • Identify cancer stem cells in blood cancers
  • Establish a platform to identify the best currently available therapies for the individual patient over the course of the disease
  • Develop pre-clinical mouse and PDX models for blood cancer
  • Identify and validate novel targets for the treatment of blood cancer
  • Implement collaborations with biotech and the pharmaceutical industry to develop new drugs for the treatment of blood cancers
  • Improve the education of the next generation of clinicians and scientists working on blood cancers