Researchers are vital for a CURE
Sagar Lonial, M.D. is associate professor, hematology/medical oncology at Emory University in Atlanta. Dr. Lonial, a recipient of a Translational Research Program grant from LLS, is studying a combination therapy for patients with myeloma and other blood cancers.
What is the biomedical problem/issue that you are trying to resolve?
The proteasome is a piece of cellular machinery that removes unnecessary proteins from cells. But in some blood cancers, such as myeloma, the proteasome may function abnormally. The targeted drug Velcade (bortezomib) works for many myeloma patients by inhibiting the proteasome. But myeloma and other cancer cells can resist being killed by Velcade. Our group is trying to better understand how cancer cells become resistant and if we can overcome that resistance, especially by making Velcade more effective in combination with other drugs.
What’s novel or innovative about your approach?
Our approach is novel because we are trying to choose drug combinations based upon preclinical evidence gathered in our laboratory studies, rather than just randomly combining available drugs. Our preliminary findings suggest that we can really improve the efficacy of Velcade for patients with myeloma by combining it with Zarnestra (tipifarnib), an experimental drug that has been shown to inhibit an enzyme that can cause excessive growth of cancer cells. Zarnestra really does not kill many myeloma cells when used alone, but the anti-myeloma effect of the combination is quite striking in laboratory tests.
How will your work one day help patients?
We are currently enrolling patients in an early phase clinical trial based upon our laboratory data, and have seen responses among patients with myeloma who were resistant to Velcade as a single agent. We are now testing higher dose levels and hope to show that the combination is measurably more effective in patients than Velcade alone, as is true in laboratory tests.
Are you close to clinical trials?
The trial is open; 23 patients have been enrolled so far.
I think the excitement is around the addition of these new agents in treatments for patients with newly diagnosed disease where combinations might be able to result in complete remissions, and possibly even durable complete remissions. In the setting of relapsed disease, new combinations may allow us to treat patients with lower doses of each respective agent to reduce side effects, or use standard dosing but with improved outcomes as measured by number and duration of responses.
What are some of your hobbies and non-research interests?
My hobbies are golf and wine tasting, only one of which I enjoy doing with my kids. I also enjoy traveling, which I am able to do a bit through the myeloma community.
Source: lls.org (eNewsLine)
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