Funding Awards Amplify Myeloma Research
| At the UAMS Myeloma Center, Fenghuang (Frank) Zhan, M.D., Ph.D., knows that research plays an immensely important role in the fight against multiple myeloma. Numerous federal grants allow the center’s director of research and his team to continue to advance and improve treatments, benefitting myeloma patients around the world.
The latest is a $1.1 million award from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA-Merit) to study drug resistance in multiple myeloma.
“Drug-resistant tumor cells are the most probable source of relapsed refractory multiple myeloma. Our aim is to identify biomarkers of drug-resistant multiple myeloma cells and develop novel targeted therapies aimed at eliminating those cells,” said Zhan. “This will provide new insights into how drug-resistant multiple myeloma cells can influence cancer cell behavior and allow us to create immunotherapies to prevent relapse.”
Additionally, Zhan received $750,000 from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in July to research improvements in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. Earlier, he received $500,000 from the Myeloma Solution Fund in March to develop novel therapy targeting myeloma patients with chromosomal t(4;14).
In September 2023, Zhan and John D. Shaughnessy Jr., Ph.D., professor of medicine, also received a $1.78 million U54 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This funding is towards a study on monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), a premalignant condition of antibody-producing plasma cells that can frequently progress to multiple myeloma or Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.
“The long-term objective is to determine the functional role of the bone marrow microenvironment in the development of MGUS and its eventual progression to myeloma,” Zhan said.
Shaughnessy directs the bioinformatics core of the NIH project.
“Our goal is to provide in-depth molecular analysis of malignant plasma cells and the cells of the bone microenvironment isolated from patients enrolled in clinical trials over the past 25 years at UAMS, with the aim of distinguishing targetable molecular events in MGUS that progressed to multiple myeloma or Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia that has remained stable,” said Shaughnessy.
Additionally, Zhan’s lab is working with grants from the NIH R01 and the Riney Foundation totaling nearly $5.6 million. This research focuses on NEK2 genes and how they signal myeloma. The goal is to use new technology to develop CAR T cells or antibodies to target certain types of myeloma and attack tumor cells while preserving normal cells.