Meet Jesus Gonzalez Lugo, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Kansas and a 2024 SOHO Young Investigator Program (YIP) awardee.
A native of Mexico, Dr. Gonzalez Lugo earned his medical degree at the Universidad de Monterrey in Monterrey. He then moved to the Bronx, New York, where he completed his residency in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, followed by a clinical fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at the same institution, where he also served as chief fellow.
His next move was to the University of Kansas, where he currently serves as assistant professor of medicine in the areas of hematologic malignancies and cellular therapeutics. His clinical and research interests include myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute leukemias.
Dr. Gonzalez Lugo attended his first SOHO meeting in 2024. “It was very helpful going to SOHO and the networking opportunity that I had,” he said. “SOHO arranges lunches with other physicians that are later in their career, and I thought that was very helpful. And I met some doctors who gave me extremely good advice about how to manage my research career.”
He cites as particularly beneficial a meeting with David Sallman, MD, a leukemia specialist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. The two formed a collaboration and initiated a research project for a grant application.
“Medicine is like a team sport,” Dr. Gonzalez Lugo said, “It’s not something that you can do by yourself. You definitely need other people to help you along, and especially in research. So having mentors is one of the most important things to help your career.”
In addition to Dr. Sallman, he cites Tara Lin, MD, as his most important mentor at his home institution of the University of Kansas.
“Dr. Lin has been there for me always and has guided me along, helping me overcome research obstacles” he said.
He also cites his University of Kansas colleague Abdulraheem Yacoub, MD, who was the one who first
brought the SOHO YIP program to Dr. Gonzalez-Lugo’s attention and encouraged him to apply to it.
Now that he is in his third year at the University of Kansas and has more experience in the field, Dr. Gonzalez Lugo has started to mentor other clinicians himself, coaching them to create abstracts and pursue YIP awards to advance their research aspirations.
In his current research, Dr. Gonzalez Lugo conducts phase one, two, and three research studies on MDS and acute leukemia, hoping to contribute to potential advancements in treatment options. He also pursues multicenter retrospective research targeting rare conditions like central nervous system acute myeloid leukemia and DDX41 mutations.
“These are rarer conditions that we don’t have answers for,” he said. “We have to do retrospective studies to generate hypotheses that we can then take to the prospective side of things.”
Outside work, Dr. Gonzalez Lugo enjoys walking his dog, a corgi-chihuahua mix named Cami, and searching for the perfect taco.
“I love searching for the perfect taco place, which I still haven’t found,” he said, citing the Tacos El Gordo chain of Tijuana-style al pastor tacos as a favorite.
“The ASH meeting was in San Diego the past two years, which was amazing because I actually crossed the border into Tijuana to get tacos. That’s where they have the best tacos in the world.”
The SOHO Young Investigator Program (YIP) supports aspiring hematologic oncologists to attend the Annual Meeting in Houston and provided opportunities to meet leaders in the field. For more on supporting SOHO and its programs, including YIP, go to soho.click/donate.
