Utilising proteomics-derived data in establishing predictive biomarker signatures to assist therapeutic decision-making in Multiple Myeloma

Prof Peter O’Gorman, Consultant Haematologist received a HRB-HRCI joint Funding Scheme Grant with Breakthrough Cancer Research the charity partner. His research will focus on Multiple Myeloma (MM). MM is an incurable cancer that originates in plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that makes antibodies. MM is the second most common blood cancer with approximately 103,000 newly diagnosed cases per year worldwide. Treatment of MM has substantially changed over the past decade with the introduction of several classes of effective drugs that have greatly improved response rates.

However, drug resistance to therapy, at diagnosis or during a patient’s treatment is a major problem and ultimately leads in death. Identifying the mechanisms of drug resistance will allow the development of new therapies that can overcome this problem. This research aims to discover unique protein signatures of MM cells and their microenvironment (i.e. bone marrow stromal cells) that will help us understand why such resistance to therapy develops. The identification of these protein signatures will aid in the development of potential biomarkers to improve diagnosis and therapy.

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Start year
2021
Principal Investigator
Professor Peter O'Gorman
Institution:
University College Dublin and Mater Misericordiae University Hospital
Grant
HRB-HRCI-Joint Funding Scheme 2020

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