Women’s History Month – Ann Mullally, MD

Ann Mullally, MD is an Associate Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School, an Attending Physician, Leukemia Program, Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an Associate Physician, Hematology, Brigham And Women’s Hospital. She is a translational cancer researcher in the field of myeloid malignancies, with a focus on myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN).

How did you become interested in hematology versus other areas of medicine?

I became really interested in hematology during residency training at Johns Hopkins where I became fascinated by acute leukemia.I became interested in lab-based research in hematology during fellowship at Brigham/Dana-Farber and I joined the lab of Dr. Gary Gilliland, who co-discovered the JAK2V617F mutation. That set me on path studying MPN.

What have been the highlights in your career, specifically in the area of MPNs?

I am very proud of our work deciphering the mechanism by which mutations in calreticulin cause MPN. I hope this work and that of others in the field will ultimately result in curative therapies for patients with CALR-mutant MPN.

I also feel privileged to have a MPN clinic and witness firsthand the challenges faced by our patients and the deficiencies of our treatments, which both provide huge motivation for researchers like myself to do better.

As a female in this area of medicine, what advice would you give women grappling with career choices in hematology and medical research?

Still in 2022, women face many challenges in academic medicine including the gender pay gap, under-representation in senior faculty and leadership positions and gender inequity in recruitment, promotion and retention to name but a few.

In order to overcome these challenges medicine needs to be remodeled and this is an active and ongoing process. My advice would be that the best way to have your voice heard is to be in the room, so come join us!