Multiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cell neoplasm with an incidence of over 20,000 new cases in the United States per year. While it is incurable, life expectancy has improved dramatically over the past two decades, in large part due to the development of a number of new agents. However, almost all patients eventually have their disease relapse, and novel treatment approaches are needed for these patients.
Approaches that re-target or reprogram the patients’ own immune system, such as chimeric antigen receptor T-cells, are an effective and exciting therapy for patients with hematologic malignancies including MM. In the clinic I lead early stage trials to bring these novel technologies to patients and in the lab study approaches to understand and overcome resistance and to improve their efficacy.
Publications
- Clonal hematopoiesis in patients receiving chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy. Miller PG*, Sperling AS*, Brea EJ, Leick MB, Fell GG, Jan M, Gohil SH, Tai YT, Munshi NC, Wu CJ, Neuberg DS, Maus MV, Jacobson C, Gibson CJ*, Ebert BL*. Blood Adv. 2021;5(15):2982-6. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2021004554.
- Facts and Hopes in Multiple Myeloma Immunotherapy. Sperling AS and Anderson KC. Clin Cancer Res. 2021 Aug 15;27(16):4468-77. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-20-3600.
- Biallelic loss of BCMA as a resistance mechanism to CAR T cell therapy in a patient with multiple myeloma. Samur MK, Fulciniti M, Samur AK, Bazarbachi AH, Tai YT, Prabhala R, Alonso A, Sperling AS, Campbell T, Petrocca F, Hege K, Kaiser S, Avet-Loiseau H, Anderson KC and Munshi NC. Nat Commun. 2021 Feb 8;12(1):868. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21177-5.