Research Program: Hematologic Malignancies

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Hematologic Malignancies Program The goal of the Program in Hematologic Malignancies is to develop a better understanding and improved treatments for this group of diseases. Four areas of focus predominate: (1) Developing a deeper understanding of the biologic basis of hematologic malignancies; (2) Using this understanding to develop better non- transplant therapies; (3) Discovering novel methods to overcome the current limitations of hematopoietic cell transplantation; and (4) Using these discoveries to improve the actual practice of hematopoietic cell transplantation. The Hematologic Malignancies program currently has 75 members from 11 departments and 3 institutions. Seventy-three Members (97%) have peer-reviewed funding or are the Principal Investigator on a clinical trial. The Hematologic Malignancies program currently has $24.3M in grant funding (direct dollars) of which $16.9M is peer-reviewed and $6.9M (40%) is from NCI. The Program published a total of 1218 papers in the previous grant period. 27% were intra-programmatic, 35% were inter-programmatic and 19% were inter- institutional. In 2012, 148,040 Americans were diagnosed with a hematologic malignancy, resulting in 54,380 deaths, making these malignancies collectively the second leading cause of cancer death after lung cancer (160,340), and exceeding in aggregate the deaths from colon (51,690), breast (39,920) pancreas (37,390), and prostate cancer (28,170). Previous work from our program has improved our understanding of this group of diseases, particularly the myeloid malignancies, leading to new approaches to screening for genetic abnormalities, improved monitoring of disease progression and novel therapeutics. Results from our studies have also led to a better understanding of the science behind problems of hematopoietic cell transplantation and provided methods to overcome some of these problems leading to improved cure rates. Members of this program also oversee a very busy clinical service, caring for 802 new patients in 2013 alone, of which 466 (58%) were treated on clinical trials.