Myeloma Crowd Radio: Dr. Kenneth Anderson, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

The advances found for multiple myeloma over the past two decades have been extroardinary. Much has been learned, and much has been accomplished with new treatment developments and arguably more discoveries than other cancers in the same time period. The past is impressive for this complex cancer, but there is more work to do. Dr. Ken Anderson helped lead the way for the discovery of new developments over a prestigious career of 40 years. He shares with us a brief look back and what he sees for the road ahead towards a cure. Dr. Anderson is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School as well as Director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Research Scientist and American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor. After graduating from Johns Hopkins Medical School, he trained in internal medicine at John’s Hopkins Hospital, and then completed hematology, medical oncology, and tumor immunology training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over the last three decades, he has focused his laboratory and clinical research studies on multiple myeloma. He has developed laboratory and animal models of the tumor in it is microenvironment which have allowed for both identification of novel targets and validation of novel targeted therapies, and has then rapidly translated these studies to clinical trials culminating in FDA approval of novel targeted therapies. His paradigm for identifying and validating targets in the tumor cell and its milieu has transformed myeloma therapy and markedly improved patient outcome.  Thanks to our episode sponsor, Takeda Oncology