The Role of Mentorship

Jensyn Cone Sullivan, MD, FASCP

Jensyn Cone Sullivan, MD, FASCP, is the director of the blood bank and the transfusion medicine fellowship at Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Cone Sullivan's research focuses on innovative techniques to increase blood product availability for these patients. She also develops proactive inventory management strategies and guidelines for the ethical allocation of blood products. Her work has been recognized as an annual Highlight of American Society of Hematology (2022), and she was selected for the National Institutes of Health's prestigious Early-Career Reviewer Program for the Transplantation, Tolerance, and Tumor Immunology Study Section.

Cone Sullivan is a 2024 ASCP "40 Under Forty" Honoree. She actively teaches and advises students from high school to post-graduate levels and was honored as the Pathology Trainee-Selected Mentor of the Year at Tufts Medical Center in 2022. Additionally, she volunteers in Michigan Medicine's Music While You Wait program, providing soothing classical and jazz piano for patients and their loved ones.

Cone Sullivan: In a word: mentorship. In clinical pathology residency, I was drawn to transfusion medicine for the excellent education framework and engaging faculty and trainee teachers in that service.

AABB News: Your work focuses on desensitizing (removing) alloantibodies. What is the most important research affecting your work today?

Cone Sullivan: Antibodies and the problems they cause—including hemolysis, organ or hematopoietic progenitor cell transplant rejection, platelet refractoriness—are a constant focus in transfusion medicine. I’m particularly interested in drugs and cellular therapies (CT) decreasing circulating antibody levels (antibody cleaving drugs, drugs promoting antibody catabolism, and B-cell and plasma cell depleting cellular therapies).

AABB News: What recent developments in transfusion medicine are you most excited about?

Cone Sullivan: I find the rapid expansion of use of CTs from blood cancers to many other diseases exciting. I believe that further work in CT therapy development (‘How do we efficiently develop safe, potent, pure, CT therapeutics?’); delivery (‘How do we get good therapies to the patients that need them?’); and medical trainee education (‘How do we teach transfusion medicine learners needed CT skills?’) represents some of the most compelling current questions in the field.

AABB News: How has mentorship impacted your professional journey?

Cone Sullivan: Mentorship and sponsorship have been key to my professional journey. Mentors have taught me not only the nuts and bolts of transfusion medicine, but a deep love for and interest in the field. I think of mentors who’ve connected me with jobs and leadership positions, and those who’ve taught me how to “do science” (a life-long journey). I am more thankful for these people than I can say.

“Meet and befriend people. People throughout this field are vested in you and your success.”

AABB News: What is the best advice you have ever received from a mentor?

Cone Sullivan: “You have to love this.” Every respected professional in this field must grind through challenges often. That said, some of the most compelling work in this field is generated by people who clearly love what they’re doing. When faced with raw data and a blank Word doc staring back, reminding myself how cool, interesting, fun and powerful transfusion medicine is often gives me the jolt of energy I need.

AABB News: What words of wisdom do you have for early-career professionals navigating their path in the blood and biotherapies field?

Cone Sullivan:  Meet and befriend people. People throughout this field are vested in you and your success (and, through you, the field’s success)!

AABB News: How has your volunteer work through Michigan Medicine's Music While You Wait program influenced your approach to patient-centered care?

Cone Sullivan: Growing up, surrounded by musicians, I was keenly aware of the power a well-fitted song had to lift or encourage. When I play piano in our busy children’s hospital entrance, similar to when I see patients for cell collections in apheresis, I feel the weight of the significant health, mental health and socioeconomic challenges facing many of them. I try to make every interaction, whether a patient interview and exam or playing Vince Guaraldi’s jazz-piano delight, the Charlie Brown Holiday suite, an opportunity to make people feel seen, heard and important.  

AABB News: What are you most looking forward to at the 2025 AABB Annual Meeting?

Cone Sullivan: Have you ever thought, “I wish I could just pick the brain of some senior, intelligent, respected person in transfusion medicine?” Kyle Annen and I are hosting an education session at this year’s Annual Meeting that will let attendees do just that on on Saturday, Oct. 25 at 9:30 am. The “15-Minute Mentoring: Focus Group Discussions with Mid- to High-Level Career Leaders in AABB” will have 24 compelling mentors who attendees can speak with, including Meghan Delaney and Joe Chaffin. We are so thankful to these mentors for their participation and cannot wait for the session.

AABB News: Tell us about the last book/podcast that inspired you.

Cone Sullivan: I’ve long loved Wesley Morris’ writing and now, his podcast, Cannonball. Wesley is a cultural critic previously at The Boston Globe (my old neck-of-the-woods), then Grantland, and now The New York Times. Wesley’s wield of English is stunning. The prose-that’s-poetry draws you in with lightness, humor and ease; then hits with challenging questions about what’s right. I highly recommend a read (“My Mustache, Myself”) or a listen (“Is 'One Battle After Another' the Best Movie of the Year?”).