Assistant Professor of Medicine and Oncology

Dr. McDevitt is the Course Director for Medical Students and Resident Rotations

Clinical/Academic Interests

Mixed Myelodysplastic/Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (Chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), atypical chronic myelogenous leukemia (aCML), MDS/MPN unclassifiable); primary and secondary myelofibrosis, myeloid disorders associated with monosomy 7 or 7q deletions. Patients are seen both in the medicine hematology clinic as well as in a specialty mixed MDS/MPN clinic jointly sponsored by the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center.  Dr. McDevitt also evaluates patients with anemia, thrombocytopenia, and neutropenia.

Research Interests

Dr. McDevitt's research focuses on unraveling the acquired genetic and epigenetic changes that lead to poor prognosis myeloid disorders.  The long term goals include:

1. Identify underlying pathways of deregulation to ultimately allow effective therapeutic targeting.
2. Develop more sensitive and accurate biomarkers that improve diagnostic classification and prognostication and can be used in translational clinical trials.
   
3. Apply these findings in early phase clinical trials for patients with accelerating myeloproliferative disorders and mixed myelodysplastic syndrome/myeloproliferative disorders. Of particular current interest are DNA repair pathways and Parp inhibitors.

Key collaborators include Judith Karp, Keith Pratz, James Herman, Alison Moliterno, Doug Smith, Hetty Carraway, Steve Gore, Cliff Takemoto, Scott Kaufmann (Mayo Clinic), and Jaroslaw Maciejewski (Cleveland Clinic).

Education/Training

• BA, Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University
• MD, Cornell University Medical College
• PhD, Molecular Cell Biology, Rockefeller University
• Internship and Residency, Johns Hopkins Universtiy School of Medicine and Hospital
• Clinical and Research Fellowship, Hematology and Oncology, Harvard School of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Children's Hospital

Selected Publications

McDevitt MA, Clinical Applications of Epigenetic Markers and Epigenetic Profiling in Myeloid Malignancies, Seminars in Oncology, in press.

Jankowska AM, Makishima H, Tiu RV, Szpurka H, Huang Y, Traina F, Visconte V, Sugimoto Y, Prince C, O'Keefe C, Hsi ED, List A, Sekeres MA, Rao A, McDevitt MA, Maciejewski JP., Mutational spectrum analysis of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia includes genes associated with epigenetic regulation: UTX, EZH2 and DNMT3A., Blood, 2011.

Stein BL, Williams DM, O'Keefe C, Rogers O, Ingersoll RG, Spivak JL, Verma A, Maciejewski JP, McDevitt MA, Moliterno AR., Disruption of the ASXL1 gene is frequent in primary, post-essential thrombocytosis and post-polycythemia vera myelofibrosis, but not essential thrombocytosis or polycythemia vera: analysis of molecular genetics and clinical phenotypes., Haematologica, 2011.

Tiu RV, O'Keefe CL, Gondek LP, Huh J, Theil K, Mohamedali A, Advani AS, List A, Sekeres MA, McDevitt MA, Mufti G, Maciejewski JP, Prognostic impact of SNP array karyotyping in Myelodysplastic syndromes and related myeloid malignancies, BLOOD, 2011.

Makishima, H, Jankowska AM, Tiu RV, Szpurka H, Sugimoto Y, Hu Z, Guinta K, Keddache MA, Putnam P, Sekeres MA; Moliterno AR, List AF, McDevitt MA, Maciejewski JP, Novel Homozygous and Hemizygous Mutations in EZH2 in Myeloid Malignancies, Leukemia, 2010.

O'Keefe C, McDevitt MA, Maciejewski JP, Copy neutral loss of heterozygosity: a novel chromosomal lesion in myeloid malignancies, Blood, 2010.

Huh J, Tiu RV, Gondek LP, O'Keefe CL, Jasek M, Makishima H, Jankowska AM, Jiang Y, Verma A, Theil KS, McDevitt MA, Maciejewski JP, Characterization of chromosome arm 20q abnormalities in myeloid malignancies using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism array analysis, Genes Chromosomes Cancer, 2010.

Makishima H, Tiu RV, Cazolli H, Dunbar A, Szpurka H, Afable E, O'Keefe CL, Hsi E, Sekeres M, McDevitt MA, and Maciejewski JP, Mutations of E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Cbl Family Members Constitute a Novel Common Pathogenic Lesion in Myeloid Malignancies, J Clin Oncol, 2009.

Ye Y, McDevitt MA*, Guo M, Zhang W, Galm O, Gore SD, Karp JE, Maciejewski JP, Kowalski J, Tsai HL, Gondek LP, Tsai HC, Wang X, Hooker C, Smith BD, Carraway HE, Herman JG*, Progressive Chromatin Repression and Promoter Methylation of CTNNA1 Associated with Advanced Myeloid Malignancies, Cancer Res., 2009.

Tiu RV, Gondek LP, O'Keefe CL, Huh J, Sekeres MA, Elson P, McDevitt MA, Wang XF, Levis MJ, Karp JE, Advani AS, Maciejewski JP, New Lesions Detected by Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Array-Based Chromosomal Analysis Have Important Clinical Impact in Acute Myeloid Leukemia, J Clin Oncol., 2009.

Jankowska AM, Szpurka H, Tiu RV, Makishima H, Afable M, Huh J, O'Keefe CL, Ganetzky R, McDevitt MA, and Maciejewski J, Loss of heterozygosity 4q24 and TET2 mutations associated with myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms, BLOOD, 2009.

Wechsler J, Greene M, McDevitt MA, Anastasi J, Karp J, Le Beau M, Crispino JD, Acquired mutations in GATA-1 in the megakaryoblastic leukemia of Down syndrome, Nature Genetics, 2002.

Dunbar AJ, Gondek LP, O'Keefe CL, Makishima H, Rataul MS, Szpurka H, Sekeres MA, Wang XF, McDevitt MA, Maciejewski JP, 250K SNP array karyotyping identifies acquired uniparental disomy and homozygous mutations, including novel missense substitutions of c-Cbl, in myeloid malignancies, Cancer Res, 2008.

Farrar JE, Nater M, Caywood E, McDevitt MA, Kowalski J, Takemoto C, Meltzer P, Beggs AH, Schneider HE, Grabowska A, Esposito D, Ball S, Niewiadomska E, Sieff CA, Vlachos A, Atsidaftos E, Ellis S, Lipton JM, Gazda HT, and Arceci RJ, A Large Ribosomal Subunit Protein Abnormality in Diamond-Blackfan Anemia (DBA), BLOOD, 2008.

Gondek LP, Dunbar AJ, Szpurka H, McDevitt MA, and Maciejewski JP, SNP Array Karyotyping Allows for the Detection of Uniparental Disomy and Cryptic Chromosomal Abnormalities in MDS/MPD-U and MPD, PLoSOne, 2007.  www.plosone.org

(* equal contributors or co-corresponding)