Making an impact: Sarah Planchon Pope

by Chuck Cascio, author and former South Lakes teacher

Sarah Planchon Pope

Approximately one million people in the United States suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS), with about 25,000 new cases diagnosed annually. A leading research center for MS is at the Cleveland Clinic, where Sarah Planchon Pope, a 1986 graduate of South Lakes High School, serves as a senior researcher. She describes her role as "designing and running clinical trials. I work in one of the best MS Centers in the world with some of the best MS clinicians, and I feel like I am able to make a difference."

The first science-related interests of Sarah's life were animals. She lived in a garage on a farm with her parents, who were finishing graduate school at Indiana University. That interest grew when 3-year-old Sarah and her parents moved to a townhouse on Reston's Ivy Oak Square and later to the Lakewinds community. "I explored streams in the woods behind Terraset Elementary, caught and played with crayfish, climbed on fallen trees, and created imaginary worlds,” Sarah says. “My parents never knew where I was, which was okay because Reston was safe, and I was never afraid."

At SLHS, AP Biology proved especially meaningful, as it was "taught by my absolute favorite person at the school, Faye Bresnick Cascio. She was the biggest influence in choosing biology as my college major because she made biology such a wonderful experience.” Sarah earned a bachelor of arts in biology at the University of Virginia and then worked in the school's Gastroenterology Lab. “The goal was to learn more about ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, including trying to develop an animal model. I liked the translational aspect of research and decided to pursue a graduate degree.”

In the fall of 1994, Sarah enrolled in a graduate program in Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where “the focus was 'bench-to-bedside'—developing treatments for current states of diseases and how to get those treatments to people as quickly as possible. I absolutely loved that program!"

Two incidents from different points in her life were particularly impactful in Sarah’s career pursuit. "When I was 4 years old living in Ivy Oak Square, a very sweet adult neighbor was very kind and liked to play with me. One day, she was simply gone. She had passed away from cancer. I remember being very sad and saying that I wanted to cure cancer one day. That event stuck with me—so when I applied for graduate programs, I focused on oncology."

In graduate school, Sarah was part of a support group for cancer caregivers when she “started talking to a gentleman whose wife was fighting breast cancer. I was growing breast cancer cells in a Petri dish in an incubator, so I asked if he would like to see them. He was very excited. I showed them to him and explained what we were studying, and he started to cry. He said how much it meant to him that we were working to fight this disease. That was when my decision to pursue research was absolutely validated. I want to help people, to try to make someone’s life better."

Her PhD in human oncology led Sarah to the Cleveland Clinic, where she has been deeply involved in research for 25 years. Much of her work has focused on oncology-related topics, but "in 2008, an opportunity presented itself for me to be project manager of a Phase I stem cell transplant trial in multiple sclerosis, so I shifted my career from bench research to clinical trials and from oncology to neurology."

Sarah currently runs “a multi-center international trial” entitled DELIVER-MS, which is “designed to see if there is a difference in clinical outcomes 10 years after disease-modifying therapies start. This trial's primary readout should occur in 2027. Getting to see what happens to brain volume loss in the participants after three years is super exciting."

Unsurprisingly, Sarah has even more in the works. She says the Food and Drug Administration recently approved what is known as an “Investigational New Drug application” for a study using a new drug called remibrutinib, created in collaboration with Novartis, that uses advanced imaging techniques to look at changes in the brains of MS patients. Sarah and her team at Cleveland Clinic’s Mellen Center will develop ways to study those changes.

In 2006, Sarah, her husband, Clark, and their 3-year-old daughter, Meredith, were living in Cleveland when they decided to buy a home in nearby Shaker Heights because "it had the commitment to diversity and the feel of a planned community, like Reston. There are walking paths, lakes, neighborhoods centered around schools, and village centers. The progressive feeling is here too, so Shaker Heights just felt a bit like home.”