Medical Advisory Board

Dr. Steven Z. Pavletic, M.D., Ph.D., is a Medical Oncologist–Hematologist and Clinical Investigator, former Clinical Director of the NIH Myeloid Malignancies Program, and former Head of the Graft-versus-Host and Late Effects Section at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Center for Cancer Research, National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Bethesda, Maryland. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Oncology at the Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, DC, and as a permanent Visiting Professor at the Universities of Zagreb and Rijeka.

In 2025, Dr. Pavletic retired from the federal government after more than 22 years of public service. He was appointed an NIH Emeritus Scientist and continues to serve as a Senior Clinical Consultant at the NIH Clinical Center.

Dr. Pavletic received his M.D. from the University of Zagreb School of Medicine and his Ph.D. from the University of Split in Croatia. He has published more than 350 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals. His clinical and research expertise includes allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies, chronic graft-versus-host disease, graft-versus-leukemia effects, and complications of cellular immunotherapy.
He has served as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials, and his work contributed to the FDA approvals of four novel agents for chronic GVHD therapy between 2017 and 2024.

Dr. Pavletic is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, a recipient of the NCI Director’s Individual Merit Award (2006), and a recipient of the National Clinical Research Foundation’s 2022 “Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award.” In 2023, he received the inaugural “Lukas Wartman” National GVHD Alliance Award for his contributions to advancing clinical care for cancer patients after bone marrow transplantation. He has held leadership roles in major U.S. and international professional organizations in hematology, oncology, and bone marrow transplantation.

Since 2018, he has been a corresponding member of the Croatian National Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Dr. Hien Liu is a Senior Member in the Moffitt Cancer Center Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy. She is the Medical Director of the Apheresis Program. She is also a Professor of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. Dr. Liu received her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School. She completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Michigan State University/Grand Rapids Medical Education and Research Center. This was followed by a Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Dr. Liu specializes in autologous and allogeneic transplant, as well as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, for multiple myeloma and plasma cell dyscrasias. Her clinical and research interests include peripheral blood stem cell mobilization strategies for autologous and allogeneic transplantation, leukapheresis for CAR T and other immune effector cell therapies, and prevention/management of chronic graft versus host disease.

Dr. Hannah Choe is a hematologist specializing in blood and marrow stem cell transplantation. She treats patients for various myeloid diseases including acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myeloproliferative disorders and other conditions requiring allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Ken is the Herman and Walter Samuelson Professor of Oncology and Pediatrics at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins where he serves as the director of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BMT) Program.
He completed residency training in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelpha before moving on to a fellowship in hematology/oncology and BMT at the Children’s Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Before taking his current position at Hopkins in 2013. he held faculty positions at The Universivery of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital and Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital and the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. At Case, Ken served as the director of the Pediatric BMT program

Ken is a laboratory-based investigator. His translational research efforts have been NIH-funded for over 30 years. His laborary pursuits focus on using animal models to understand the molecular and biologic underpinings responsible for the development of graft-versus-host disease. He has a special interest in acute and chronic pulmonary dysfunction that occurs in this context including idiopathic pneumonia syndrome (IPS). More specifically, his laboratory is investigating the role endovascular injury plays in several post-transplant complications including IPS and VOD.

His translational research efforts in this space have been recognized by a Clinical Scholar Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and his induction into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

His clinical interests include transplant-related toxicity and BMT for non-malignant disorders including aplastic anemia and hemoglobinopathies.

Dr. Marcos de Lima is a Professor of Medicine at The Ohio State University and the Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy programs at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. He has extensive experience developing and conducting clinical trials in the context of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for myeloid malignancies. His research focuses on strategies to prevent leukemia relapse after transplant and the development of novel translational cellular therapy approaches to treating blood cancers.

Betty Ky Hamilton MD is an Associate Professor of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and staff physician in the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Hamilton’s clinical and research interests focus on the treatment of hematologic malignancies with allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation; and improving outcomes post-transplant, specifically in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), survivorship and quality of life.