Shella Saint Fleur-Lominy, MD, PhD

A.S., Biology with Honors, Biology, Kingsborough Community College, 2001

B.S. cum laude, Biology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 2003

M.D., New York University School of Medicine, 2010

Ph.D., Molecular Oncology and Immunology, New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science, 2009

Internship, Internal Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, 2011

Residency, Internal Medicine, Research Track, New York University School of Medicine, 2012

Fellowship, Hematology and Medical Oncology, Research Track, New York University School of Medicine, 2017

ABIM Certification-Internal Medicine, 2013

ABIM Certification-Hematology, 2016

ABIM Certification-Medical Oncology, 2016

Dr. Saint Fleur-Lominy is a clinician scientist with clinical focus on the diagnosis and treatment of leukemia and myeloid disorders and research focus on acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She is also an accomplished educator with diverse experience as course director, lecturer, fellowship program director and a former member of the ASCO Onlology Training Program Committee. She is committed to training future physicians. She has a diverse research training background in cell signaling, epigenetics and clinical trials and a goal of improving outcomes of patients with leukemia by addressing biological and modifiable sociodemographic correlates of disparity in leukemia outcomes. 

Since her fellowship training, she has focused on the study of pathways involved in the pathogenesis and drug resistance in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). As a fellow, she started her postdoctoral research on the study of Calcium-release activated calcium (CRAC) channels in the biology of T-ALL using a Notch-1 induced mouse model and genetic inhibition of CRAC channels. She then transitioned to human B-ALL samples under the mentorship of Dr. Carroll at NYU, studying epigenetic changes in leukemic blasts as a result of chemotherapy pressure by performing ChIPseq of paired diagnosis/relapse samples and integrating the epigenetic data with gene expression profiling and whole genome sequencing data to understand mechanisms of drug resistance in B-ALL. That work led to the discovery of 3 superenhancers associated with expression of top genes up-regulated in relapsed and drug resistant disease, including. super enhancer linked to S100A8, the top upregulated gene in relapsed B-ALL and with known association with drug resistance in both ALL and AML. She is interested in the pharmacologic modulation of the epigenome of leukemic blasts to alter chemotherapy response and improve outcome of ALL.  Integrin signaling was one of the top signaling pathways found in the integrated genomic and epigenetic data to be associated with B-ALL relapse. She is currently collaborating with researchers at NYU to study to the role of integrin signaling in leukemic blast proliferation, invasion of sanctuary sites and response to cytotoxic chemotherapy.

With the understanding that cancer outcomes are influenced not only by biological factors but also sociodemographic including racial and ethnic identity, Dr. Saint Fleur-Lominy started using available dataset in collaboration with biostatisticians and other leukemia specialists to uncover main socioeconomic factors associated with outcomes of leukemia. The goal of these projects is to better understand some of the key modifiable factors associated with decrease survival in leukemia and design not only biological sound combination clinical trials but also in a diversity-conscious way to improve clinical trial enrollment of underserved community patients and improve their outcomes.

At UMGCCC, she has a major responsibility of leading clinical trials in ALL. She is devoted to provide critically-needed care to the patient population in the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland. Her goal is to rationally design drug combination that can overcome inherent and acquired resistance in leukemic blasts while minimizing barriers preventing enrollment of diverse patients.

Leukemia, genomic, epigenetic, drug resistance, clinical trial, equitable access

1. Saint Fleur-Lominy S, Maus M, Vaeth M, Lange I, Zee I, Suh D, Liu C, Wu X, Tikhonova A, Aifantis I, Feske S. STIM1 and STIM2 Mediate Cancer-Induced Inflammation in T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Cell Rep. 2018 Sep 11;24(11):3045-3060.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.08.030. PMID: 30208327; PMCID: PMC6170166.
2. Pierro J, Saliba J, Narang S, Sethia G, Saint Fleur-Lominy S, Chowdhury A, et al. The NSD2 p.E1099K Mutation Is Enriched at Relapse and Confers Drug Resistance in a Cell Context-Dependent Manner in Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Mol Cancer Res. 2020 Aug;18(8):1153-1165. doi: 10.1158/1541-7786.MCR-20-0092. Epub 2020 Apr 24. PMID: 32332049; PMCID: PMC7415532. 
3. Saint Fleur-Lominy S, Evensen NA, Bhatla T, Sethia G, Narang S, Choi JH, Ma X, Yang JJ, Kelly S, Raetz E, Harvey RC, Willman C, Loh ML, Hunger SP, Brown PA, Getz KM, Meydan C, Mason CE, Tsirigos A, Carroll WL. Evolution of the Epigenetic Landscape in Childhood B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Its Role in Drug Resistance. Cancer Res. 2020 Dec 1;80(23):5189-5202. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-1145. Epub 2020 Oct 16. PMID: 33067268; PMCID: PMC8647946.
4. Chen X, Shukla M, Saint Fleur-Lominy S. Disparity in hematological malignancies: From patients to health care professionals. Blood Rev. 2024 May; 65:101169. doi: 10.1016/j.blre.2024.101169. Epub 2024 Jan 8. PMID: 38220565.
5. Saint Fleur-Lominy, S.; Bhatla, T.; Kelly, S.; Vasudevaraja, V.; Tsirigos, A.; Carroll, W. (2017) Genomic and Epigenetic Effects of DNA Methyltransferase Inhibition in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. ASH 2017, The 59th Annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, Atlanta, GA, 2017