Dr. Walter is the Edward P. Evans Endowed Professor of Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Scientific Director of the Center for MDS in the Siteman Cancer Center. He trained in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and completed a fellowship in Hematology-Oncology at Washington University. He completed his post-doctoral training with Tim Ley at Washington University while carrying out genetic studies related to leukemia initiation and progression.

Dr. Walter established his laboratory at Washington University in 2005, where he focuses on the discovery of mutations within the genomes of blood cells from patients with MDS. Recent efforts of the laboratory, in collaboration with the McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University, use next-generation sequencing technology to map all the mutations present in the blood cells (i.e., whole genome sequencing) from patients with MDS and precursor diseases to better understand how mutated cells evolve over time and cause complications in patients. Tracking these mutations in patient’s blood samples over time could help identify patients at highest risk of disease progression who may benefit from early treatment. The lab continues to study how a set of common mutations that occur MDS, spliceosome gene mutations, cause disease initiation and progression using primary patient samples and pre-clinical models with the goal of translating findings into the clinic to improve the lives of patients with MDS.