The Medical Advisory Board of the WES Foundation has been established to provide counsel and direction to the Foundation’s research efforts. It is a role that we see as being pivotal in maintaining the focus with which the Foundation was created. A cure or cures for leukemia are closer now than ever in history. It is only through research and the funding it requires that those cures can be identified. The Medical Advisory Board will determine the most relevant, productive and promising research initiatives that, in their opinion, can most benefit from the funding the Foundation will be able to provide annually and provide the direction for distribution of those funds. WES is indebted to them and appreciative of their dedication to the cause and their willingness to serve in this capacity.

We feel very blessed to have individuals of their character providing us the direction we seek. We appreciate their expertise, their counsel, their generosity and their dedication in assisting us with finding the cure that will assure a day when everyone survives.

Meet our Medical Advisory Board 

Chairman: Edmund K. Waller, MD, PhD, FACP

Dr. Waller received his MD and PhD degrees from the Cornell Rockefeller program at Cornell University and his clinical training in Oncology from Stanford University Hospital. He has been on the Emory University School of Medicine faculty for the past 22 years serving as a Professor and serves as the Emory Director for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering. He served as the Director of the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program at Emory University from 1998 to 2019 and the Associate Director for Clinical Research for the Emory Winship Cancer Center from 2009-2012. Additionally, he served as the first Medical Director for Clinical Trials at the Winship Cancer Institute (2005-2009) and then served as the Associate Director of Clinical Research of the Winshape Cancer Institute for an additional three years, through 2012. His research interests are in optimizing the graft-versus-leukemia effect of allogeneic transplantation and in optimizing the safety of the transplant maneuver. He has an active basic science research laboratory and is active in enrolling patients on clinical trials that investigate new therapies for patients with leukemia, multiple myeloma, and lymphoma. He sees patients with leukemia, MDS, lymphoma and myeloma who are considering autologous or allogeneic transplantation in the management of their disease or patients who are candidates for clinical trials that investigate new therapies for these diseases.

Amelia Langston, MD

Dr. Langston has been a member of the Emory faculty since 1998, and is currently an Professor of Hematology/Oncology. She graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, did her Internal Medicine residency training at Duke University Medical Center and fellowship training at the University of Washington/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Langston is the Medical Director and Section Chief of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program, and she is also an active researcher in the Leukemia Program with a primary interest in acute myelogenous leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes. Her other research interests include novel approaches for allogeneic transplantation, prevention and therapy of graft-versus-host disease, and prevention and management of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients.

Leon Bernal-Mizrachi, MD

Dr. Bernal-Mizrachi is an instructor of Hematology and Oncology in the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Dr Bernal-Mizrachi's medical degree was obtained at the Valle University in Colombia, and his clinical Hematology/Oncology training was obtained at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. His postdoctoral training in molecular oncology was obtained at Washington University (Lee Ratner's Laboratory). Dr Bernal-Mizrachi's clinical and research interests focus on lymphomas and leukemias. His laboratory studies the molecular mechanism by which NF-kB produces lymphomagenesis, focusing on protein interactions and the identification of NF-kB dependent genes that contribute to pathophysiologic lymphoid formation. Dr.Bernal-Mizrachi's laboratory team includes Qyung Yang, MD and Joan Cain, MD. For further information and publication record: http://www.pharm.emory.edu/hfu/researchbernal.htm

Sunil Raikar, MD

Dr. Raikar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Division of Hematology, Oncology and BMT at Emory University School of Medicine. He is a physician-scientist with a research focus in cellular immunotherapy, with a primary interest in developing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) against hematological malignancies. Dr. Raikar received his MD from Saint Louis University School of Medicine in 2009, where he also did his pediatric internship and residency. He completed his fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in 2016. During his fellowship, he created novel CARs using lamprey-derived variable lymphocyte receptors to target T-cell malignancies under the mentorship of H. Trent Spencer, Ph.D., Director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Program at Emory University. In 2017, Dr. Raikar joined the faculty at Emory University as a member of both the Leukemia/Lymphoma Program and Cell and Gene Therapy Program in the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In 2020, he was awarded a prestigious NIH Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (K08) through the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Raikar’s clinical expertise is in the treatment of children with blood cancers, and he is nationally involved with the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), where he serves on the T-ALL and MPAL (mixed phenotype acute leukemia) Disease Committees.