Every year on March 8th, International Women’s Day (IWD) invites the world to celebrate the achievements of women and to take meaningful action toward gender equality. This year’s official theme, Give to Gain, highlights the power of generosity, collaboration, and shared opportunity to accelerate progress for women and girls worldwide. The message is simple yet profound: When we GIVE our time, knowledge, resources, or visibility, we all GAIN.
At the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation (FLF), this theme resonates strongly with the way we work. Our mission is to accelerate research, embolden patients, and bring the prospect of a cure ever closer. This all depends on a global network of dedicated individuals, experts, clinicians, scientists, and advisors who exemplify what Give to Gain looks like in action.
This International Women’s Day, we celebrate the exceptional women who shape follicular lymphoma research and care. Their generosity, expertise, and leadership embody the spirit of Give to Gain, creating a ripple effect of progress that extends far beyond the lab bench or clinic.
Because when women scientists thrive, patients gain hope, discoveries accelerate, and the possibility of a cure for follicular lymphoma grows ever closer to reality.
Meet the women investigators whose leadership and innovation are driving meaningful progress in the fight against follicular lymphoma. Coming from diverse scientific and clinical backgrounds, they share a common goal: to improve outcomes for everyone affected by follicular lymphoma. Their contributions accelerate discovery, strengthen global collaboration, and bring us closer to the breakthroughs patients urgently need:
Professor Okosun is a Scientific Advisor to the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation and a leading clinician-scientist in lymphoma research. She is a Consultant Haematologist at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Professor of Translational Cancer Research at the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London.
Her research focuses on the genetic and molecular drivers of follicular lymphoma, aiming to translate biological insights into more precise, personalised treatments. Through her role at the Foundation, Professor Okosun helps shape research strategy and strengthen the link between scientific discovery and patient impact.
As one of the FLF’s scientific advisors Jessica regularly features in our webinars which you can watch here:
Dr Patricia Pérez-Galán, PhD is a CURE FL Award–supported investigator whose research focuses on targeting both follicular lymphoma cells and the tumour microenvironment to improve patient outcomes. As part of the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation’s CURE FL Program, her team is developing next-generation, dual-targeted CAR-T cell approaches designed to overcome treatment resistance and address immune signals that help cancer cells survive.
Dr Pérez-Galán leads a multidisciplinary research group dedicated to understanding how lymphoma cells interact with their immune microenvironment, generating advanced models that better mimic follicular lymphoma biology. Her work aims to translate these biological insights into innovative, targeted therapies that could bring us closer to lasting remissions and, ultimately, a cure for follicular lymphoma.
Read more about our CURE FL Cycle 1 grantees here:
Dr Wendy Béguelin, PhD is an internationally recognised lymphoma research scientist whose work focuses on the epigenetic and immunological mechanisms that drive follicular lymphoma development and progression. She is an expert in how genetic regulators like EZH2 influence lymphoma cell behaviour and immune interactions, and her research aims to translate these biological insights into better therapeutic strategies for patients with FL and related lymphomas.
While primarily based at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, Dr Béguelin’s work is connected with the broader follicular lymphoma research community supported by the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation, including scientific efforts to understand disease persistence, resistance mechanisms, and novel ways to enhance immunotherapies.
Read about our Cure Fl Awards here:
Professor Kim Linton, MBChB, PhD is a respected lymphoma specialist and clinician-scientist known for her work on personalised treatment approaches in follicular lymphoma and related non-Hodgkin lymphomas. She has contributed to research that examines evolving therapy strategies and risk stratification to improve outcomes for patients with FL and other lymphomas. Her publications and clinical expertise help inform evidence-based care and ongoing research priorities within the lymphoma community.
Watch our webinar on Choosing your next treatment: What FL patients should know where Professor Linton shares insights on what matters most to doctors and patients when navigating their next treatment options:
Dr. Roulland is the Inserm Research Direct and Team leads at the CIML, focusing on the underlying biological mechanisms in the development and progression of B-cell lymphomas. Her research has uncovered the earliest steps of lymphomagenesis, most notably in Follicular Lymphoma (FL), demonstrating that genetic alteration can be detected in individuals’ years before onset disease through premalignant B-cell clones. Her research applies cancer genetics, functional genomics to understand genomic instability alongside chronic immune stimulation and the microvenvironment that contribute to disease evolution and transformation in malignancies.
Approaches such as CRISPR/Cas9 genome screening, single cell transcriptomics and patient models help her team research the key pathways and genes that are responsible for lymphoma cell survival, immune evasion and how treatments respond. Dr.Roulland’s research aim is to have a strong understanding of tumour heterogeneity, identify and define molecular vulnerabilities so that diagnostic tools can be improved as well as the development of new treatments for lymphoid malignancies.
Karin’s research is focused on both normal B cells and B-cell malignancies with a strong focus Follicular Lymphoma and the mechanisms of the co-evolution of tumour clones and the microenvironments that support them. Her and her team are dedicated to the translational research and use SITI (an immunomonitoring laboratory) to evaluate novel biotherapeutic approaches with the aim to understand tumour microenvironments and how they can be utilised in new therapeutic strategies and as predictive biomarkers. Dr Tarte is a PI and co-investigator across both European and US agencies and programmes with the French NCI and French national agency and has contributed to the new clinical trials sponsored by the LYSA – Lymphoma study Association. Alongside her work focused on Lymphoma she was also key in pioneering the use of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) to treat MSK and inflammatory conditions on clinical-grade MSC mechanisms of action helping to define regulatory rules in clinical use in Europe.
Dr Coraline Mlynarczyk, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology) at Yale School of Medicine whose research focuses on the immunology and metabolism of germinal centre-derived B-cell lymphomas. Her lab combines advanced models with immunological and metabolic analyses to uncover biological mechanisms that contribute to lymphoma development and treatment resistance insights that could help identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities. Dr Mlynarczyk’s work is supported by the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation and contributes to efforts to better understand disease progression and accelerate the development of more effective treatments for follicular lymphoma.
Dr Mina L. Xu, MD is a Professor of Pathology and Director of Hematopathology at Yale School of Medicine, where she specialises in diagnosing and studying blood cancers, including lymphoma. Her clinical and research expertise in hematopathology and spatial biomarker discovery helps uncover biological mechanisms of lymphoma progression and guides more precise diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Dr Xu’s work is connected with the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation’s research community, advancing efforts to understand disease biology and bring us closer to more effective treatments for follicular lymphoma.
Read more about our FL Biomarker Discovery Program here:
Together, these exceptional women demonstrate how generosity, expertise, and collaboration fuel scientific progress. By giving so much of themselves, their knowledge, their creativity, their time—they move the entire field forward and bring the hope of a cure ever closer.
Join Us — Give to Gain, and Help Change the Future of Follicular Lymphoma
At the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation, every breakthrough our investigators achieve begins with someone choosing to give. Your support fuels the research that leads to better treatments, deeper understanding, and the hope of one day curing follicular lymphoma. Whether you’re a patient or a loved one, an investor, a scientist, or a philanthropist affected by this disease – or simply someone who believes in the power of progress – you have a vital role to play.
Give to Gain. Give to accelerate discovery. Give to bring hope. Give to change lives.
If you are able, please consider donating today.
