Research we fund

The present project will investigate the ability of quantitative immune precipitation mass spectrometry (QIP-MS) to anticipate relapsed or progressive disease in peripheral blood samples from patients with multiple myeloma. In the context of the GEM2014MAIN trial (lenalidomide and dexamethasone plus or minus ixazomib as maintenance), we will assess the presence of disease by QIP-MS in parallel with conventional methods in serum and next generation flow in bone marrow samples.

Multiple myeloma (MM) relies on the bone marrow (BM) niche to progress to refractory disease. We found that beta blockers alter BM niche elements fostering MM growth and also reduce MM cell survival. Our objective is to elucidate the cellular and metabolic basis of how beta adrenergic signals impact the BM niche and MM progression. Knowledge of the prophylactic and therapeutic utility of beta blockers in MM will unravel new means to target neural niche remodeling fueling this fatal malignancy.

The goal of this project is to explore a novel immunologic therapeutic target for hematologic malignancies, SIGLEC15 (Sig15). The central hypothesis is that Sig15 is aberrantly expressed in malignant B cells, is released to attenuate immune responses and can be targeted therapeutically to promote immune responses to malignant hematopoietic cells. This work will accelerate therapeutic exploitation of the immune system for the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma by targeting Sig15.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) created an unprecedented environmental exposure to WTC aerosolized dust and gases that contained known and suspected carcinogens including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated furans, dioxins and asbestos. Studies from Dr. Verma's group and others have reported an excess of cancer cases in the WTC-exposed Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) firefighters, including a trend towards higher incidence of multiple myeloma and leukemias. He now will be deep sequencing a large group of WTC-exposed firefighters to look for clonal hematopoiesis (CH) which is an acquisition of leukemia associated mutations associated with increases in the risk of hematologic cancer.

Common genetic variation explains a large share of childhood leukemia in children of European ancestry and may explain the differing incidence in children of other ancestries. The Childhood Cancer and Leukemia International Consortium seeks to better understand the genomic architecture of childhood leukemia risk using its collective genomic datasets comprising >20,000 diverse children with leukemia. The results will inform risk prediction for and possibly prevention of childhood leukemia.

Dr. Olszewski’s trial will examine mosunetuzumab as a first-line treatment for follicular and marginal zone lymphomas—slow-growing types of B-cell lymphoma which remain incurable using current therapies. Mosunetuzumab is a “bispecific antibody” that can trigger an immune attack of patients’ own cancer-killing T-cells against the lymphoma. Dr. Olszewski team will look for characteristics that predict complete responses when this novel immunotherapy is applied as first-line treatment.

The goal of our work is to use a “bench to bedside and back” approach to develop new treatments for patients with relapsed/refractory AML. Through genetic analysis of patients who relapse or do not respond to standard and investigational treatments, we discover potential resistance mechanisms. In the lab, we test novel drugs and identify new drug targets that may address these resistance mechanisms when used in combination with other therapies. The overall goal of our research program is to improve treatment options and survival of patients with refractory AML.

Young Black patients diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have significantly shorter survival compared to White patients. To comprehensively assess genetic, genomic and biologic contributors to the race-associated survival disparity, we propose a complementary approach that addresses major knowledge gaps in our current understanding of AML biology in Black patients, including the overdue characterization of the Black AML genome and subsequent delineation of biologic response to treatment.

RNA splicing is a central metabolic pathway that is frequently perturbed in hematopoietic malignancies (HMs) that harbor mutations in spliceosome components (most commonly affecting SRSF2, SF3B1, U2AF1, or ZRSR2). These mutations are particularly prevalent in myeloid malignancies (e.g., MDS, MDS/MPN, sAML), but recent pan-cancer studies have implicated aberrant splicing in >30 tumor types. The Project Leaders have probed the molecular consequences of aberrant splicing and identified critical pathways that are amenable to targeted inhibition, including the DNA damage response (Graubert/Walter), the nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD) pathway (You/Walter), the spliceosome itself (Abdel-Wahab/Walter/Graubert), and others. To date, effective therapies for HMs have not capitalized on these unique vulnerabilities. The goal of this SCOR is to generate testable clinical hypotheses based on careful mechanistic studies in pre-clinical models and to rapidly move these ideas into the clinic in the near term.

We focus on blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN), an aggressive blood cancer with limited treatment options and poor outcomes. We want to understand what causes the disease, develop laboratory tools, and identify new treatments and ways to overcome therapy resistance. We have translated our discoveries to clinical trials. Our goal is to continue this bench to beside approach to develop the next generation of BPDCN therapies that improve survival and minimize treatment toxicity.

In previous studies of recurrently amplified 1q21 genes in myeloma, we identified ILF2 as a modulator of the DNA repair pathway, which promotes adaptive responses to genotoxic stress. Thus, ILF2 may have clinical utility as a biomarker of aggressive myeloma and blocking the ILF2-mediated repair signaling may enhance the effectiveness of current DNA-damaging agent-based therapies. We are seeking to determine the feasibility of therapeutically targeting ILF2 with antisense nucleotides and identify DNA repair effectors whose loss of function induces synthetic lethality in ILF2-depleted myeloma.

In February 2021, LLS made an equity investment in Caribou Biosciences to support "A Phase 1, Multicenter, Open-Label Study of CB-011, a CRISPR-Edited Allogeneic Anti-BCMA CAR-T Cell Therapy in Patients With Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma." 

Caribou is a leading clinical-stage biotechnology company, co-founded by CRISPR pioneer and Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., using next-generation CRISPR genome-editing technology to develop “off-the-shelf” (allogeneic) CAR therapies for hard-to-treat blood cancers.

CB-011, Caribou’s second allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy, targets BCMA for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma and is immunologically cloaked for enhanced persistence. The CaMMouflage Phase 1 clinical trial, a multicenter, open-label study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a single dose of CB-011 in adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (r/r MM), is currently enrolling (NCT05722418).