Hematologist-in-Training Honored with ASH Abstract Achievement Award

Mariia Mikhaleva MD, a Research Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, received an Abstract Achievement Award at the 65th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition for her study on mutational burden in patients with treatment-naïve chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

This merit-based award honors the accomplishments of hematologists-in-training with high-scoring abstracts of which they are the first or senior author and presenter.

“It was a little bit unexpected,” said Dr. Mikhaleva, of the award. “This is the first ASH award that we have, and I heard this year was really competitive. We are honored to get this award, and I would like to thank the research team for … help with this project.”

A first-generation graduate student, Dr. Mikhaleva earned her doctor of medicine degree in St. Petersburg, Russia, and joined the CLL Laboratory of Jennifer Brown, MD, PhD, at Dana-Farber in September 2022 as a Fullbright Scholar to continue her doctoral research. Her award-winning abstract, “Higher Mutational Burden Is an Independent Predictor of Shorter Time to First Treatment in Untreated Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients,” identified patterns of co-occurrence and mutual exclusivity among mutations in CLL and their impact on time to first treatment.

Dr. Mikhaleva described the proudest moment so far in her career. “In the last two years, I missed my clinical practice,” she began. “The greatest achievement is that I could combine the research and the patient. It is a really great feeling that you are involved in the research field that could have an impact in the clinical setting, and a couple of years later, you can use those methods or drugs directly with your patients. I think this is a great achievement.”

In the future, she plans not only to continue research in CLL, but also to dive into the field of clonal evolution in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).

“I’m really interested in those clonal evolution patterns in a cell,” she shared. “I think it could be my next little project.”