Baltimore Round Table - March 28, 2018

Ashraf Badros, MD, is a Professor and Director of the Multiple Myeloma Service at the Greenebaum Cancer Center of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He has extensive clinical experience in the diagnosis and management of multiple myeloma. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, he was a faculty member of the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy at the University of Arkansas. He was involved in the initial trails of thalidomide and has conducted many clinical trials for treatment of relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. Dr. Badros research has focused on evaluation of immunological approaches to eradicate residual myeloma cells in the high-risk setting following autologous stem cell transplantation using natural killer (NK) and interleukin -2 (IL-2) activated cells and non-myeloablative allogeneic donor grafts. Dr. Badros is involved in the development of targeted novel therapeutics. Dr. Badros’s clinical research focuses on novel agents and manipulation of the immune system to enhance antimyeloma effects of various therapies. He was involved in the initial clinical trials of thalidomide, lenalidomide and proteasome inhibitors including bortezomib and carfilzomib. He has conducted seminal trials in transplantation for patients with renal failure, several trials for relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma focusing on novel agents, and defined risk factors of osteonecrosis of the jaw in multiple myeloma patients and had a NIH-funded grant to investigate its pathogenesis. Dr. Badros is a member of International Myeloma Working Group. He has written or cowritten more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Blood, Leukemia, Nature Medicine, the British Journal of Haematology, Transfusion, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and the American Journal of Medicine as well as five chapters in medical texts. He served a fellowship in oncology at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, completed an internship and residency at Harbor Hospital, Baltimore, MD and earned his medical degree from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Ivan Borrello, MD, is associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Cell Therapy and cGMP Biologics Core for the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. He is a member of the Hematologic Malignancies and Bone Marrow Translational Program. Dr. Borello’s clinical research interest is in developing immune based therapies for the treatment of multiple myeloma. HIs laboratory interests have focused on the development of a novel approach of adoptive T cell therapy utilizing marrow infiltrating lymphocyte (MILs) as a more tumor specific T cell approach. This has led to establishing the first adoptive T cell trials at Johns Hopkins, and he is currently exploring this approach in other diseases including non-hematologic malignancies. Dr. Borrello is also examining strategies for treating minimal residual disease (MRD) in myeloma with the combination of immune modulation and whole cell-based vaccines. Dr. Borello served a fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia.

William Matsui, MD, is Deputy Director of the LIVESTRONG Cancer Institutes, Professor in the Department Oncology and Director of Hematological Malignancies Program at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. He specializes in caring for patients with cancers that involve the blood and bone marrow as well as bone marrow transplantation. He came to Austin from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was a professor of oncology and served as the director of the Multiple Myeloma Program and the co-director of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies. Dr. Matsui has carried out laboratory-based translational research throughout his career and focused on studying cancer stem cells, tumor cells with enhanced growth potential and their role in clinical oncology. His laboratory first identified cancer stem cells in the plasma cell malignancy multiple myeloma in 2003 and subsequently in other cancers including lymphomas, leukemias and pancreas cancer. His laboratory has also demonstrated that several pathways regulating normal stem cells, including those involved in embryonic development, are abnormally activated in cancer stem cells. Dr. Matsui completed his residency training in internal medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle and his clinical training in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins. He earned his medical degree from the University of California at San Francisco.

David Vesole, MD, PhD, is director of the Myeloma Program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and a professor of Medicine at Georgetown University. Concurrently, he is co-director of the Myeloma Division and director of Myeloma Research at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center. Previously, Dr. Vesole was director of the BMT Program at Loyola University in Maywood, IL, an attending physician at St. Vincent's Comprehensive Cancer Center in New York, and Professor of Medicine and Clinical Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Dr. Vesole is board certified in medical oncology and hematology and is a member of the International Myeloma Foundation Scientific Advisory Board and the International Myeloma Working Group, a board member of the New York City chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and a reviewer, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Translational Grant Review Committee. He has authored more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and book chapters. He also serves as a reviewer for several journals, including the American Journal of Hematology, Blood, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplant, Bone Marrow Transplant, Leukemia, Leukemia and Lymphoma and Clinical Lymphoma Myeloma & Leukemia. Dr. Vesole has presented his research at medical meetings and symposia nationally and internationally. Dr. Vesole earned a medical degree at Northwestern University and a doctorate in immunology and microbiology at the Medical University of South Carolina. His postdoctoral medical training included a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.