Cemile Gunalp, MD

Dr. Michael Christopher Banks is an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His areas of clinical expertise include anesthesiology. Dr. Banks serves as the co-course director of Optimal Anesthesia Management at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.Dr. Banks earned his M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He completed his residencies at the University of Maryland Medical System. He performed a fellowship in microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, a fellowship in surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and a fellowship in critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins.He is a faculty member in the Adult Critical Care Fellowship program in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine.

Dr. Donald Small is the Kyle Haydock Professor of Oncology. He holds joint appointments in Pediatrics and Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Human Genetics. He also directs the Johns Hopkins/National Cancer Institute Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship program. Dr. Small received his undergraduate, and then M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Johns Hopkins University in 1979 and 1985. His Ph.D. research was conducted with Bert Vogelstein in the Oncology Department and his postdoctoral research with Tom Kelly in the Molecular Biology and Genetics Department. He trained in pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty in 1990. Dr. Small’s laboratory was the first to clone the human FLT3 gene that is the most frequently mutated gene in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and results in very poor chances of cure for these patients. The investigations of FLT3 led Dr. Small and his team to discover drugs able to inhibit the cancer-generating activity of this important gene. His laboratory showed that a new class of drugs known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors could kill FLT3-affected cells, thus developing one of the earliest molecularly targeted cancer therapies. They then developed a test that enabled them to screen a host of additional kinase inhibitors and find several with great potency against FLT3. His group also led the first clinical trials investigating the use of a FLT3 inhibitor in adult relapsed and refractory FLT3 mutant AML, and determined how best to combine these drugs with chemotherapy. They also helped design the first pediatric trials of FLT3 inhibitors in pediatric AML and infant ALL. Dr. Small’s lab continues to investigate leukemic processes and the role of stem cells in governing the activities of the FLT3 gene in leukemia.

In her first decade as a pediatric oncologist, Dr. Symons already has shown an impressive ability to juggle multiple research projects, in addition to caring for patients.One of Dr. Symons' research pursuits focuses on using a novel immunotherapy approach to treating both solid tumors and hematologic (blood-borne) malignancies. The basis of her work stems from the theory that cancer patients' immune systems should recognize tumor cells as foreign and destroy them. This doesn't happen, theorizes Dr. Symons, because the immune system attacks only those cells it perceives as dangerous—not cancer cells, which it sees simply as foreign. That's where her research comes into play.Evaluating an experimental therapy, Dr. Symons is pairing donor lymphocytes (white blood cells that activate the body's immune system) with chemotherapy to determine if this combination will "awaken" patients' immune systems to the danger of existing cancer cells and, in turn, elicit an immune response.In a separate yet equally compelling research endeavor, Dr. Symons is working to increase the availability of donors for children whose cancer requires bone marrow transplants (BMTs) as a potentially lifesaving treatment. "It can be challenging to find a 'matched' donor," says Dr. Symons, who explains that only about 40 percent of patients who require a BMT find a matched donor. "Sometimes, we don't have the benefit of time, because remissions can be short-lived. But almost all patients have a half-matched donor: a parent, sibling, or child," adds Dr. Symons, who is examining ways to reduce BMT-related complications ordinarily associated with half-matched donors after ablative (high dose) chemotherapy."Like anything else that's new, it will take some time to prove that this is a feasible option that's safe," she says. But she's optimistic. "It has the potential to revolutionize BMT." Dr. Symons knows it's worth the wait. "Seeing the research I do in the lab translate into clinical trials, then seeing patients in these trials survive long term, is incredibly rewarding," she says.