Tell us a little bit about yourself!
My name is Dr. Lacramioara Ivanciu; I’m a resident assistant professor of pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010, when I was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Rodney Camire’s laboratory, I was awarded NHF’s Judith Graham Pool Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
Wonderful! What did your research focus on?
At the time, I was studying FX variants for treatment of hemophilia. The goal of my work was to generate recombinant coagulation factor X variants and evaluate their therapeutic potential for the treatment of hemophilia in an acute bleeding situation. We found the variants are safe and efficacious at low concentrations in mitigating bleeding in hemophilia. This work was significant for the preclinical development of FX variants as bypass agents for treatment of hemophilia A or B.
How did becoming a JGP fellow assist your work?
Obtaining this fellowship was an important starting point for my academic career in basic and translational research in bleeding disorders. It provided me with the necessary support to acquire skills and knowledge related to career development, grant writing, review of relevant literature, development of independent ideas, and supervising a research team. It also gave me the opportunity to discuss my research findings with a critical mass of experts by attending and presenting findings of this work at hemostasis and hemophilia related meeting (e.g., NHF, American Society of Hematology, International Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis). Furthermore, I was able to publish a first-author paper in a high impact journal, Nature Biotechnology.
What did receiving the fellowship mean for you?
I was thrilled to learn of my selection for this prestigious fellowship and I am deeply appreciative of NHF’s support in the early stage of my career. Even after my grant period had ended, acquisition of the NHF JGP fellowship had a major contribution to my faculty appointment at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. My current research interests aim to elucidate the regulation of clot formation in vivo under normal and pathologic conditions. These efforts have the potential to expand our understanding of the physiological regulation of hemostasis as well as the control of hemophilia in a very significant way. I am thankful for the support of my career from the JGP Grant and NHF as a whole.
What impact do you see the JGP Fellowship having in the future?
I think that the National Hemophilia Foundation’s support of other early career investigators to develop their own ideas and become independent investigators is so critical to those interested in bleeding disorder research. NHF’s support will not only contribute to the career development of talented scientists, but also provide opportunities for therapeutic development that will have a substantial effect on the quality life of people living with bleeding disorders.
The Judith Graham Pool Postdoctoral Research Fellowship has been supporting basic science and pre-clinical research to expand our understanding of bleeding disorders since 1972. Learn more here.
