A Review of the ASH (American Society of Hematologists) Conference

Dr. Ailawadhi is a Professor with the Division of Hematology-Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and joined the Division in 2014 when he moved from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles where he was an academic faculty with Hematology. His career focus has been on treatment of plasma cell disorders, namely multiple myeloma and Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, and also chronic lymphocytic leukemia. His research has focused on understanding the epidemiology and pathophysiology of these disorders, evaluating the benefit of various therapeutic strategies in different populations based on racial-ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, as well as developing novel therapeutics by means of conducting several regional and national clinical trials. These have included phase 1 through phase 3 clinical trials for novel drugs including cellular therapy such as car T-cell treatment. Dr. Ailawadhi has a special interest in understanding the disparities in care of cancer patients and their outcomes with a special focus on patients from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. To achieve this, he has done several extensive analyses from large national databases and is focused on improving clinical trial accrual across the country, especially for patients from racial and ethnic minorities.