Kathleen M. Sakamoto

Dr. Sakamoto received her B.A. in Biology from Williams College and her M.D. from the University of Cincinnati. She was a pediatric resident and hematology/oncology fellow at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Sakamoto was a research fellow at UCLA and then was a faculty member at UCLA in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology/Oncology for over 20 years. She received her Ph.D. in Biology from the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Sakamoto was the Division Chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at UCLA for six years and was the Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Pediatrics; co-Associate Director of the Signal Transduction Program Area of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and co-Chair of the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Committee for Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health. From 2011-2014, she was the Division Chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Stem Cell Transplant/Cancer Biology at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Dr. Sakamoto was the Fellowship Program Director and is the P.I. of an NIH T32 training grant at Stanford. Dr. Sakamoto was a member and Chair of the Academic Promotions Committee at Stanford University of School of Medicine. Currently, she is a member of the Child Health Research Institute Executive Committee at Stanford University. Nationally, she has been a standing and ad hoc member of National Institutes of Health grant review committees for the past 15 years. She is Chair of the Bear Necessities Scientific Review Committee. Dr. Sakamoto is currently a member of the NIDDK Council.

Dr. Sakamoto’s research has focused on signaling pathways and gene regulation in normal and aberrant hematopoiesis, including leukemia and bone marrow failure syndromes. She is specifically interested in targeted therapies for leukemia and other types of pediatric cancers. Dr. Sakamoto has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for 28 years. She currently holds the Shelagh Galligan Endowed Professorship and has received awards from the American Cancer Society, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Bear Necessities, and CDMRP(DOD). She is developing novel therapies to target CREB for the treatment of acute leukemia and bone marrow failure syndromes. Promising small molecule compounds that are effective in the lab and nontoxic will be tested and optimized to take to the clinic for patients with relapsed leukemia and Diamond Blackfan Anemia. This will provide novel approaches to treat leukemia in children.