Summary: Mission Bio collaborates with University of Miami researchers to leverage single-cell DNA analysis for deeper insights into multiple myeloma relapse and treatment strategies.
Takeaways:
- Groundbreaking Collaboration: Mission Bio’s Tapestri platform will be used by leading researchers to examine multiple myeloma at a clonal level, aiming to improve relapse prediction and treatment personalization.
- Innovative Sampling Goals: The partnership will explore the feasibility of using blood samples instead of bone marrow, reducing patient discomfort and improving accessibility for testing.
- Improved Outcomes Potential: By addressing the genetic complexity of multiple myeloma, the study aims to accelerate relapse detection and refine treatment decisions, offering hope for better patient survival rates.
Mission Bio, a leader in single-cell multiomics solutions for precision medicine, announced a collaboration with a team of researchers to generate clinical data sets using its Tapestri Single-cell DNA Multiple Myeloma Panel to examine multiple myeloma (MM) at an unprecedented level of clonal detail, promising to reveal new insights that may potentially improve outcomes for MM patients.
Mission Bio will be partnering with C. Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, head of one of the world’s leading myeloma computational and translational research laboratories. Dr. Landgren’s team, including David Coffey, MD, and Benjamin Diamond, MD, at the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Impact of Multiple Myeloma
Multiple myeloma is a challenging and incurable blood cancer that afflicts around 230,000 people worldwide. Relapse is a particular problem for many of these patients—as many as 50% experience relapse within the first year of frontline treatments, and only 20% of relapse victims survive for five years with current standard therapies.
The key to controlling relapse in multiple myeloma patients lies in better understanding of resistant clones: cells that have developed mutations or alterations that help them evade treatment. However, current tools inadequately profile the disease from the initial emergence of clones to full-blown myeloma.
Using clinical samples from University of Miami, the goal of the collaboration is to help predict which patients are at higher risk of relapse, and, in the event of relapse, whether it can inform and guide subsequent treatment decisions. In addition, the project will determine if blood can be used as an alternative sample for patient testing instead of bone marrow samples. The utilization of blood would vastly improve sample accessibility and alleviate the invasive patient experience.
“We recognize that Multiple Myeloma is a genetically complex disease that hasn’t been easy to comprehend fully using existing methods, particularly when it comes to the crucial questions of when patients might experience relapse and what clinicians should do next when relapse occurs,” says Landgren. “Our aim is to utilize Tapestri to better understand Multiple Myeloma disease heterogeneity, which in turn will allow us to detect and treat relapse faster. Ultimately, we hope to demonstrate the clinical feasibility of the Multiple Myeloma assay and to facilitate the establishment of Tapestri to advance outcomes for patients.”
Further reading
“Our partners and customers continue to push the boundaries of single-cell DNA and multiomic analysis in new and inspiring ways,” says Brian Kim, CEO of Mission Bio. “The work being done by Dr. Landgren and his team promises to unearth critical insights that will not only be able to help predict relapse in Multiple Myeloma patients, but also inform more effective, personalized treatment strategies in the future.”
