Dr. Savona is the Beverly and George Rawlings Director of Hematology Research and Early Therapy Program, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is a clinician-physician-scientist specializing in myeloid malignancies, and a leader in development of novel therapies for these patients.  Dr. Savona founded the MDS/MPN International Working Group in 2012, and leads the first international platform study of novel therapies in MDS/MPN overlap syndromes: ABNLMARRO.   

In his translational efforts from the laboratory, he is interested in developing new therapies for hematologic malignancies.  He has focused his studies on age-associated clonal variants and associated risk of disease, and is the founder of CHIVE – Clonal Hematopoiesis and Inflammation in the Vasculature – one of the first and largest prospective repositories and registries of CH patients.  In addition, his focus on mitochondrial metabolism in myeloid malignancies to the development and license of an early series of compounds to inhibit MCL1 to battle BCL2 resistance; and discovery of activity of a novel, selective inhibitor of F₁ subunit of ATP synthase which became the initial asset of Empath Biosciences, a company he co-founded to discover new chemistry from novel bacteria.  He has been involved in biomedical research for over 20 years, and has published in major academic journals including:  Cancer Discovery, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nature Medicine, Nature Cancer, Nature Reviews, NEJM, Blood, Cell Stem Cell, Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Lancet Haematology, and JAMA. He is an elected fellow of the American College of Physicians, and American Association for Advancement of Science and served as a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Clinical Scholar. He volunteers on the board of directors for the MDS Foundation. Dr. Savona obtained his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Davidson College and medical degree at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He did post graduate clinical and research training at the University of California, and the University of Michigan.  He also served as physician in the United States Air Force and is a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom.