It is my pleasure to announce that Elaine M. Majerus, MD, PhD and Stephen T. Oh, MD, PhD, have been named co-Chiefs of the Division of Hematology in the Department of Medicine, effective December 1, 2021. Dr. Majerus will be responsible for the clinical operations, clinical research and clinical training aspects and Dr. Oh will be responsible for the basic and translational research aspects of the Division.
Dr. Majerus is Professor of Medicine and has served as the interim Division Chief for the Division of Hematology since December 2018, after the passing of Dr. Evan Sadler. She received a BA in Biology and a PhD in Molecular Cell Biology and Biochemistry from Washington University and received her medical degree from Saint Louis University. She did her internal medicine residency training at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and her hematology-oncology fellowship as part of our physician scientist training program here at Washington University. Dr. Majerus is an outstanding clinician who provides compassionate cutting edge care for patients with benign blood disorders. She receives excellent evaluations from students, residents and fellows who work with her and her educational hematology clinic rotations are highly sought after by trainees. In addition to being an exceptional clinician and educator, Dr. Majerus runs a very successful clinical trials program focused on patients with bleeding disorders. Dr. Majerus has led many clinical interventional therapeutic trials for sickle cell disease and hemophilia patients. She has been a national leader in enrolling patients in clinical trials for phase 1 and phase 2 studies of regadenoson (Lexiscan) in sickle cell disease and was the site PI for local studies of adenovirus associated virus vector mediated gene transfer of human factor VIII in hemophilia. She also established a number of registries and biobanks for thrombotic microangiopathies and other thrombotic disorders.
Dr. Majerus also established the federally funded Center for the Treatment of Bleeding and Blood Clotting Disorders at Washington University. The Center provides comprehensive, multi-disciplinary care for children and adults with bleeding disorders including hemophilia and von Willebrand disease. The Center also operates a pharmacy under a 340b program to provide more affordable access to life saving replacement products for patients with hemophilia and now provides therapies for thrombotic diseases and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Under her leadership as interim Division Chief, Dr. Majerus expanded the Division’s clinical operation and established clinics in Columbia, MO and Carbondale, IL. The Division also opened an outpatient pulmonary embolism clinic in conjunction with the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, added new telemedicine clinics, and expanded sickle cell services in North County at Christian Northeast. The Hematology division has had an 18% growth in ambulatory visits and a 7.4% growth in new patients under her leadership.
Dr. Oh is Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Professor of Pathology and Immunology. He earned an AB in Biochemical Sciences, cum laude, at Harvard University, and then completed his MD and PhD degrees at Northwestern University. Dr. Oh went to Stanford University for residency, fellowship and postdoctoral training, where he worked with Drs. Garry Nolan and Jason Gotlib and identified novel LNK (SH2B3) mutations in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). He was then recruited to the Division of Hematology at Washington University, where he has developed an independent research program investigating the initiation, development, and progression of MPNs. Dr. Oh exemplifies a successful physician-scientist, leading a very strong basic research program, a robust clinical trial research program, and an active clinical practice caring for MPN patients. A major focus of his laboratory research is to utilize mass cytometry and multiplex imaging approaches to interrogate dysregulated cytokine-signaling networks in MPNs. Utilizing these approaches, his group has reported the novel identification of hyperactivated NFkB signaling in myelofibrosis (MF), identified the cellular loci and intracellular signaling pathways driving cytokine overproduction in MF, and demonstrated that targeted JAK2 inhibition does not fully rectify abnormal inflammatory cytokine production in MF. He has successfully translated his laboratory findings to the clinic via an investigator-initiated study targeting NFkB with the NEDD8 activating enzyme inhibitor pevonedistat in patients with MF (NCT03386214).
Dr. Oh has received numerous awards in support of his work, including the Doris Duke-Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, Sidney Kimmel Foundation Scholar Award, American Society of Hematology Scholar Award, and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Translational Research Program. His laboratory research is currently funded by two NHLBI awards (R01 HL134952, R21 HL150636), in addition to multiple collaborative grants related to mass cytometry and multiplex imaging. His research is also supported by an Interdisciplinary Research Initiative grant from the Children’s Discovery Institute. He was also recently invited to join the Editorial Board of Blood. Dr. Oh is a committed mentor, and, since Dr. Sadler’s passing, has served as Program Director of the NHLBI-supported Molecular Hematology T32 training program, which he was able to successfully renew through Year 50 (T32 HL007088). Since 2014, he has also been Co-Head of the Immunomonitoring Laboratory in the Bursky Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs (CHiiPs). Drs. Majerus and Oh are exceptionally qualified to take on these new roles. Please join me in congratulating them on their new positions as co-Chiefs of the Division of Hematology.