Johanna Melo-Cardenas is originally from Colombia. After completing her undergraduate studies there, she worked at UC San Diego on novel immunotherapies for leukemia patients. Dr. Melo-Cardenas received her PhD from Northwestern University where she studied the function of a deubiquitinase in myeloproliferative disease. She is now a postdoctoral research fellow at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital under the mentorship of Dr. John Crispino. The focus of her research is on Primary Myelofibrosis (PMF). Patients with PMF have limited treatment options that can cure the disease. In PMF, abnormal scar tissue forms in the bone marrow impairing the normal production of blood cells. Unfortunately, little is known about how the disease progresses. She studies how bone marrow factors contribute to the disease and scar formation. By knowing more about this process, she aims to uncover new ways to treat the disease before it progresses to a more severe phase.