Hello, my name is Irene Gubriel. I'm at the International Myeloma Society meeting, and I was here to discuss single-cell RNA sequencing of tumor and immune cells and why it matters. I think it's critical to think of why we need single cell, and I usually say it's just like with bulk sequencing, it's like you're drinking a smoothie. It tastes good, but you don't know the difference between an apple or an orange. And with single cell sequencing, you can really go down to the level of is this a good apple or is this a mutant apple? And that allows us now to understand better both the tumor cells and what's happening with them, as well as the immune cells and the other changes that can happen in the microenvironment, even the nonimmune cells. And with that, you can ask questions of progression from MGUS to small-dream myeloma to myeloma and what could potentially be leading to progression. You can also understand the differences between normal plasma cells and malignant plasma cells and how we can develop new targets and new therapies for them. And you can also understand better how a therapy like CAR-T therapy or by specific trials can help us understand who is going to respond to therapy and who will not respond to therapy. And this is critical because we're using very expensive drugs and we want to be sure that those patients who will go on those trials are going to respond to therapy and avoid toxicity and infections from those studies.
