Shannon Elf, PhD

Dr. Shannon Elf is an Associate Professor in the Division of Hematology and Hematologic Malignancies, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Oncological Sciences, is a member of the Center for Iron & Hematology Disorders (CIHD), and a member of the Cell Response and Regulation Program at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

The overarching goal of Dr. Elf’s research program is to dissect the disease-driving mechanisms underlying myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), specifically myelofibrosis. Her group has particular interest in understanding the underlying pathobiology of disease-driving cells in myelofibrosis, which include MPN stem cells and neoplastic fibrocytes. Current active areas of research in her lab include defining the metabolic requirements for MPN stem cell fitness and how these metabolic phenotypes are regulated by intracellular calcium, defining neoplastic fibrocyte lineage determination and fate in normal hematopoiesis and myelofibrosis, and understanding how neoplastic fibrocytes interact with stromal cells in the bone marrow to support collagen deposition and resulting fibrosis. Long term, the knowledge gained from these studies has the potential to provide important insight into curative therapies for myelofibrosis, which currently do not exist outside of bone marrow transplantation. Dr. Elf’s lab also hopes to use these insights to inform the pathobiology of other rare chronic myeloid diseases, and other fibrotic diseases outside of the bone marrow.

Originally from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, Dr. Elf completed an A.B. in Biology & Music at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and a Ph.D. in Molecular & Systems Pharmacology under the mentorship of Dr. Jing Chen at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her doctoral work focused on novel targets for treatment of myeloid leukemias from the duel perspectives of leukemogenic tyrosine kinase signaling and cancer cell metabolism (Elf et al., Blood, 2011; Shan & Elf et al., Molecular Cell, 2014; Lin & Elf et al., Nature Cell Biology, 2015; Elf et al., Oncogene, 2016). She performed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Ann Mullally, where she elucidated the mechanism by which mutant calreticulin drives myeloproliferative neoplasms (Elf et al., Cancer Discovery, 2016; Elf et al., Blood, 2018). Dr. Elf received a prestigious K99/R00 transition to independence award from the NIH to open her lab in 2019 at the University of Chicago. Since then, her work has been funded by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the American Society of Hematology, Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation, the MPN Research Foundation, and NIH. Dr. Elf moved her lab to the University of Utah/HCI in 2023. She is an active member of the American Society of Hematology and the International Society of Experimental Hematology, is a reviewer for journals including Blood, Leukemia and Nature Communications, and sits on study section for NIH, LLS, DoD, and others.