ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2026
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Patrizia Mondello, MD, PhD, MSc, is a physician-scientist focusing on the biology and therapeutic targeting of B-cell lymphoma. She trained in Medical Oncology in Italy. Given her interest in the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer development, she enrolled in a PhD program in Cellular Biology and Experimental Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) under the dual mentorship of Drs. Anas Younes and David Scheinberg, leading researchers in the field of hematologic malignancies. During that time, Dr. Mondello explored the impact of novel therapeutic agents aimed at disrupting well-defined oncogenic signaling pathways. She pursued postdoctoral studies at Weill Cornell in the laboratory of Dr. Ari Melnick, a renowned expert in epigenetics. The focus of her postdoctoral research was aberrant epigenetic programming and development of precision therapies in B-cell lymphoma. Dr. Mondello then honed her clinical expertise in lymphoma as an advanced fellow at MSKCC under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Zelenetz, a recognized leader in lymphoid malignancies. She further enhanced her research skills in immunotherapy and epigenetics as an advanced fellow at Mayo Clinic under the combined mentorship of Drs. Stephen Ansell and Laura Pasqualucci (Columbia University). These diverse and complementary experiences—spanning rigorous basic science, translational research and clinical training—have provided Dr. Mondello with a multidimensional perspective and laid the foundation for her independent research program, which focuses on translating fundamental epigenetic mechanisms driving lymphomagenesis into clinically impactful therapeutic strategies for B cell malignancies. By combining genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic profiling approaches of lymphoma patients and genetically engineered lymphoma cell lines together with transgenic mouse models, Dr. Mondello's lab aims to identify and functionally characterize recurrent genetic lesions affecting chromatin modifiers and transcription factors, determine the role of these alterations in modulating the tumor-immune crosstalk and ultimately use this information to develop specific and potent therapeutic strategies.