From Candy Striper to Head of Hematology

When Jennifer Woyach, MD, started as a resident and fellow two decades ago, patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) often needed to switch treatments on a regular basis as their therapies failed. Their prospects of living for decades were low.

Then came the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor revolution, which one of her mentors was helping to usher in. Physicians found that many patients could stay on the same therapy for years instead of months.

“The laboratory work we were doing translated to the clinic very quickly, and it was just really exciting,” Woyach recalled. “I could see that the field was primed for more big advances, and I wanted to be part of it.”

Now, as the evolution of therapy allows some patients to live normal lifespans with CLL, Woyach is guiding the way toward even better therapies as one of the top CLL researchers in the world.

She has led research that uncovered how CLL develops resistance to therapy and helped to uncover the full power of BTK inhibitors. Most recently, her work is hinting that reversible forms of these inhibitors could free patients from continuous therapy.

In January 2025, her career reached a milestone: The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, Columbus, Ohio, named her director of Hematology.

In an interview, Woyach spoke about the roots of her interest in medicine, promising treatments for CLL that are in the works, and her advice for young medical students.

You grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and you’re back there in Ohio State. Where did you go in between? 

I went to college at University of Notre Dame, then came back to Ohio State for medical school and have stayed here ever since. I did my medical residency here as chief resident, then did hematology fellowships and joined the faculty in 2012.

What drew you to medicine?

I wanted to be a doctor pretty much as long as I can remember. I like science and wanted to do something where I could help people. I always found medicine very interesting.

Did you do medical things as a kid?

I was a candy striper. I delivered flowers to people’s rooms, passed out water, sometimes I filed things.

Then when I was in college, I spent the summer working at an outreach program affiliated with a hospital where we would take a van to underserved areas and go door-to-door asking people if their kids needed to be vaccinated. I also worked in a kind of mobile clinic that would go to homeless shelters and churches around the city of Columbus and treat people in the outpatient setting. That really solidified that this was what I wanted to do.

How did you settle on hematology? 

The science was advancing rapidly. On the inpatient side, you would see people who were newly diagnosed and feeling really poorly. You would give them therapy, and they would start to feel better pretty quickly, which was nice to see clinically.

Also, people live with CLL live for a long time. You get to see the same patient over multiple years, learn more about them and their family, and really develop relationships.

What drew you to work on CLL, specifically?

My mentor was John Byrd [a leukemia specialist who’s now at the University of Cincinnati], who is very well known in the CLL field. We were able to put people on clinical trials of exciting new drugs and give people hope in a setting where they previously didn’t feel a lot of hope.

I began to understand the clinical trials that were going on at this time when ibrutinib was first being developed for CLL. He was working on that in the laboratory, and I started working on it as well. It was exciting to able to see laboratory work we were doing translated to the clinic very quickly, and I could see that the field that was really primed for more big advances. I wanted to be a part of it.

How has CLL treatment changed since you started in the field?

When I was introduced to the disease as a resident and early fellow, most people were treated with chemotherapy, and people with high-risk disease didn’t do very well. There were a lot of clinical trials being done, but most of these treatments would give people a pretty short time of remission, maybe 6 months or 9 months before they’d have to try something different.

Then came ibrutinib. All of a sudden, people were on this drug for 4 years, or even longer. It was transformative, and now we have many more BTK inhibitors that are even better tolerated than ibrutinib.

We have other mechanisms of targeted therapy, and we’re starting to use immune-based therapy in CLL. Our options for therapy have expanded tremendously.

What are you working on in CLL?

Our group is focused on understanding resistance mechanisms to targeted therapies and looking at novel therapies in CLL that have the potential to overcome resistance. We’re also interested in high-risk CLL and how high-risk mechanisms impact responses to therapy.

What therapies seem to be especially promising?

We’ve done a lot of work recently with nemtabrutinib, a reversible BTK inhibitor. We’re also working on MS-553, a protein kinase C beta inhibitor, and two different BTK inhibitor degraders.

How do degraders work?

Instead of inhibiting the activity of a protein, degraders work by eliminating the protein altogether. It’s a new paradigm in multiple different diseases, and a few of the ones that have gone into clinics have been really exciting so far.

They have a lot of potential in CLL, especially for people who have gone through multiple BTK inhibitor–targeting therapies and still have progressive disease. It’ll be exciting to see how they look in earlier lines of therapy too.

What are some of the challenges for treatment of CLL in its initial stages?

Frontline therapy is really good. Most people can expect to live a normal lifespan with CLL. The particular challenges are trying to figure out the best therapy for each individual patient such as those who are very young and who may need 40 years of therapy instead of 20 years.

I’m excited about the potential for using targeted immune agents like bispecific antibodies or CAR T cells earlier in therapy. Maybe we could give people a longer remission duration, and they could live the rest of their natural lives without needing additional treatment.

What do you think CLL will look like in 5 or 10 years?

More people will be treated with fixed-duration frontline regimens that allow people to have time off treatment. And we’ll probably see CAR T cells and bispecific antibodies moving earlier on in therapy.

What do you think will still be especially challenging?

Richter transformation — the transformation of CLL to an aggressive lymphoma. It’s been very difficult to effectively treat, and that’s going to probably remain an issue for a while.

Do you have advice for young medical students who may want to develop a career like yours?

When you’re in training and early in your career, take advantage of opportunities that you’re given even if it’s in an area that you’re not entirely sure you’re interested in. Often, doing a good job with one opportunity is going to lead to future opportunities.

And there’s still a lot of room for people to make a difference in diseases like CLL, even though there’s been a lot of momentum forward already. CLL is still a field where we need young people working on new treatments in the lab and in the clinic.

Woyach reported relationships with AbbVie, AstraZeneca, BeiGene, Genentech, Janssen, Loxo/Lilly, Merck, Newave, Pharmacyclics, and Schrodinger.