The Precision Medicine Approach at WCMC Explained

In a recent article from the The Magazine of Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, physicians and scientists from the Lymphoma Program explained their approach to treating lymphoma. Dr. John Leonard explained,

“You shouldn’t treat everybody who walks in the door the same way. We want to treat with a tailored approach based on what’s most likely to work for that individual patient.”

Blood cancers have been at the forefront of research on tailored approaches to treatment, known as precision medicine. In large measure, these advancements are due to researchers’ ability to access tumor material from such patients more readily than they can with other types of cancer. In the past decade, Weill Cornell researchers have been involved in developing or testing almost every new lymphoma drug recently approved by the FDA. While most cancers today are treated primarily through surgery and radiation, Leonard notes, cancers of the blood are different. “Lymphoma is a disease where treating with drugs is central to curing the patient,” he says.

The entire article can be read here.

New Options for Treating Patients with Ibrutinib Resistant Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Earlier today the prestigious journal Cancer Discovery published the results of our program’s latest work in mantle cell lymphoma. Although previous clinical trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of ibrutinib in treating patients with mantle cell lymphoma, researchers also noted that some patient’s lymphoma developed ibrutinib resistance during treatment. Our findings revealed some insight into why this resistance occurs and offers several potential treatment strategies for patients who develop ibrutinib resistanceBased on their findings,

“…the researchers devised two treatment strategies that they tested in lymphoma cell lines. Both involve serial use of two anti-cancer drugs — the first to weaken or “prime” the cancer cells, and the second to deliver an added impact. Both use the experimental agent palbociclib (which selectively inhibits two cell-cycle promoting proteins, CDK4 and CDK6) to slow down the cancer’s growth and sensitize cells to the killing power of a second drug.”

As the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Selina Chen-Kiang commented,

“While for many patients ibrutinib represents a valuable treatment option, it has limitations, and we have been able to demonstrate how novel therapy combinations that target the cancer’s resistance pathways might possibly work better.”

These results build on years of laboratory and clinical work at WCMC, and they highlight the need for further research such as our ongoing trial with ibrutinib plus palbociclib

If you have any questions please contact us and look to our clinical trials page for our ongoing trials.

For additional information see the press release from the American Association for Cancer Research.

New Developments in Lymphoma–Newsletter

The Lymphoma Program has published the inaugural issue of the New Developments in Lymphoma Newsletter.

Please look to this space for further announcements of future newsletter issues, or sign up for advance notice of the newsletter here.