UAMS Gets $100,000 Myeloma Research Grant

By todd

| LITTLE ROCK – A research project now underway at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to develop myeloma-killing white blood cells has earned a $100,000 grant from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF).

Frits van Rhee, M.D., Ph.D., director of immunotherapy at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at UAMS, is the principal investigator on the project. The one-year grant, with a possible renewal for a second year, was one of six Senior Research Awards handed out nationally this year by the foundation.

The UAMS project is seeking to eliminate drug-resistant multiple myeloma by activating the patient’s own immune cells to recognize and kill the cancer cells. Van Rhee and his team are doing this by isolating two proteins thought to be unique to cancer and myeloma. The proteins are given to specialized immune cells or transferred as genes into these cells. The modified specialized immune cells are then used to generate white blood cells, which can kill myeloma cells.

Van Rhee came to Arkansas from the University of South Carolina in 2001. He earned his Ph.D. in immunology at the Royal Post Graduate Medical School in London , and later served as a visiting professor at the National Institutes of Health in Washington , D.C. An associate of van Rhee on the project at UAMS, Ramesh Batchu, Ph.D., won a Junior Research Award from the MMRF in November.