Post-ASH January 30, 2021 Myeloma round Table

Myeloma survivor, patient advocate, wife, mom of 6. Believer that patients can help accelerate a cure by weighing in and participating in clinical research. Founder of the HealthTree Foundation.

Greg Brozeit has been engaged in myeloma patient advocacy since 1998. He began working with the Myeloma Crowd in 2015. Prior to that, he consulted with Dr. Bart Barlogie at the University of Arkansas after working with the International Myeloma Foundation for 15 years, where he inaugurated the public policy advocacy program, patient support group outreach and IMF Europe, organizing more than 100 physician and patient education programs. He earned his BA in political science from Loyola University in New Orleans and lives in northeast Ohio.

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.

Ajai Chari, M.D. is the Director of the Multiple Myeloma Program and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Chari’s research interests include the development of novel chemotherapy regimens, including Phase 1 and 2 studies. He has served as the principal investigator (PI) of several investigator-initiated trials as well as the national and international PI of several industry-sponsored studies. With a long standing dedication to research, Dr Chari has been involved in each of the therapies approved in multiple myeloma over the last two decades. He has published numerous articles in the field and is a frequently invited speaker at national and international meetings. Dr. Chari received undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California – Los Angeles. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and a fellowship in hematology and oncology at the University of California – San Francisco.

Adam D. Cohen, MD, is Director of the Myeloma Immunotherapy program and Associate Professor, Hematology/Oncology Division at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in CAR T cell research and treatment in myeloma. Dr. Cohen is board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hematology. He is a member of the American College of Physicians, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, and the American Society of Hematology. He is also a member of the Multiple Myeloma Committee, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and the Multiple Myeloma Panel, National Comprehensive Cancer Network. In addition, Dr. Cohen is an ad hoc reviewer for Annals of Oncology, Cytotherapy, Journal of Translational Medicine, Blood, Amyloid, and Clinical Cancer Research. He has written dozens of original articles, book chapters, and reviews on DNA vaccines, tumor immunity, multiple myeloma, amyloidosis, and stem cell transplant. Dr. Cohen received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he also completed an internal medicine residency. He completed a hematology/oncology fellowship and was a research associate in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York.

Angela Dispenzieri, MD, is Professor of Medicine and of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and holds the Serene M. and Frances C. Durling Professorship at the Mayo Clinic. Additionally, she is a consultant in the Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, serves as Chair of Hematology Research, and joint appointments in the Division of Clinical Biochemistry and Immunology, Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and Molecular Medicine. Dr. Dispenzieri conducts research in plasma cell disorders, including multiple myeloma, amyloidosis, POEMS syndrome and other rare plasma cell disorders. Her joint appointments in Hematology and Clinical Chemistry are conducive to clinical and translational research in these fields. She also specializes in clinical trials—with a special interest in virotherapy--and stem cell transplantation. She is the Director of the Biospecimens Core of the Mayo Clinic Myeloma SPORE. Dr. Dispenzieri is frequently invited to give presentations on her research both domestically and internationally, and she has authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, and abstracts. She has held editorial and reviewer responsibilities for several prominent publications. Dr. Dispenzieri joined the Mayo Clinic staff in 1998 after completing a fellowship and residency in Hematology and Oncology there. She earned her MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, NY and her BS in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, MA.

Noopur Raje, MD, is director of the Center for Multiple Myeloma at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her primary focus is treating patients with multiple myeloma and related plasma cell disorders. Dr. Raje leads a dedicated clinical team engaged in investigator-initiated, multi-center national and international clinical trials, all aimed at developing new promising therapies for multiple myeloma. Her laboratory efforts are focused on identifying cellular signaling pathways that contribute to the survival and proliferation of myeloma cells in the bone environment for which targeting may result in improved therapeutic outcomes.