HealthTree Podcast for Multiple Myeloma

Join us for our second interview on Myeloma Crowd Radio highlighting the new Myeloma Crowd Research Initiative on high-risk myeloma. As part of this series, Dr. Guenther Koehne, MD, PhD of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will share his use of a T cell vaccine with an allogeneic transplant to provide outstanding results, even in plasma leukemia patients. His research pulls out T cells, marks them with a tag to target the WT1 protein, and are given back. He will describe how this works, the impact he has seen so far, the stage of his clinical trial and the work left to do to make this an available therapy for high-risk myeloma patients.  Dr. Guenther Kohene, MD, PhD is Medical Director of the Cell Therapy Laboratory in the Bone Marrow Transplantation Laboratory at Sloan Kettering. He is also Assistant Member and Assistant Attending Physician in the Allogeneic Bone Marrow Transplantation Service. He is Assistant Professor of the Joan and Sanford Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He leads research at the BMT Department/Immunology Program to develop adoptive immunotherapeutic strategies for post-transplant blood disorders. He has particular expertise in the creation and monitoring of antigen-specific T cell responses in these patients. He is the Principal Investigator in active clinical trials using adoptive cell therapy following allogeneic stem cell transplants for multiple myeloma and plasma cell leukemia patients. He obtained his medical degree at the University of Hamburg, Germany and has been at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center permanently since 2005. Special thanks to our Myeloma Crowd Radio Episode sponsor, Takeda Oncology.

Join us for this first interview on Myeloma Crowd Radio highlighting new Myeloma Crowd Research Initiative on high-risk myeloma. For the first time, patients and doctors are joining together to find and fund research for patient group that is desperate for new options. The MCRI initiative reached out the the worldwide community and asked them to submit their research proposals for high-risk patients. We received 36 high quality proposals from all over the world. The MCRI Scientific Advisory Board then scored the proposals, selecting 10 for further review. These ten will be included in the Myeloma Crowd Radio/MCRI series on high-risk.   As part of this series, Dr. Craig Hofmeister, MD from Ohio State University will share his research being done to use engineered CAR T cells to specifically target the high-risk types of multiple myeloma.  Thanks to our episode sponsor, Takeda Oncology.

Can multiple myeloma be cured by shutting it down before it turns from smoldering to active myeloma? Dr. Ajay Nooka of the Emory Winship Cancer Institute joins us to talk about new, early-stage clinical trials being explored for smoldering myeloma patients including a new OncoPep vaccine to prevent progression.

Are there new treatment options for the relapsed/refractory myeloma patient? Dr. Ravi Vij, MD of Washington University School of Medicine describes some newer approaches and therapies now in clinical trials.

Join us for the first show of 2015 with a review of the ASH conference's most important topics with Dr. Robert Orlowski, MD, PhD, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The mPatient Myeloma Radio show change its name to Myeloma Crowd Radio beginning January of 2015. Follow us on Twitter @myelomacrowd or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/myelomacrowd.

The guidelines for myeloma treatment are changing to allow earlier treatment, even without some of the typical symptoms or disease damage. The goal is to treat earlier and prevent severe damage that myeloma causes. Learn more about these new guidelines from Dr. Vincent Rajkumar, MD of the Mayo Clinic on this very important show.

When patients harvest stem cells in preparation for autologous transplant, can they be "cleaned up" or can all residual myeloma cells be completely removed before they are given back during transplant? Learn how Dr. Eric Bartee, MD, PhD of the Medical University of South Carolina is using a virus to do just that.

Dr. Irene Ghobrial, MD, PhD of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute joins us to explain her recent discovery of a compound that can prevent myeloma from spreading into the bone, protecting patients from one of the most damaging effects of the blood cancer. Join us to learn more about this very exciting discovery.

Join us as we talk with renown myeloma expert Dr. Jesus San Miguel of the University Hospital of Salamanca about high risk myeloma, recent findings of the International Myeloma Working Group and his work on minimal residual disease.

Learn from Dr. Larry Kwak, MD, PhD about the latest in immunotherapy; specifically for vaccine use in myeloma. Dr. Kwak was noted on the 2010 Time list of Most Influential People for his vaccine work in lymphoma. As Professor and Chair of the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer center, he has 20+ years of experience in cancer vaccines and will share how his success in lymphoma is being advanced in myeloma.