How the Leukemia Lymphoma Society plans to Beat AML
The 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology with over 27, 000 attendees, a record high, was the venue for the announcement of a major new initiative by the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (LLS), called Beat AML.
It is lead by three well respected researchers in the Hematology/Oncology field:
- Dr John Byrd (Ohio State)
- Dr Brian Druker (OHSU)
- Dr Ross Levine (MSK)
Beat AML is a special project at LLS, who have developed a broad collaboration with academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies, a genomic provider, and a clinical research organization:
Source: LLS
Initially, there will be five trial sites, which will each offer all arms of the trial. The centers are:
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York
- The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Ohio
- OHSU Knight Cancer Institute in Oregon
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and
- Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, both in Massachusetts.
Further sites and (hopefully) also other drugs from pharma companies will be added in due course, so if you’re interested in joining this project, do contact them after checking out more details here!
For our industry readers, this would be a great opportunity to get involved in an exciting and landmark study for AML, whether you are a researcher or a company with a promising drug in early development. These types of trials can help speed up drug development if a therapy graduates in a particular subset.
Here, we offer an in-depth analysis of the scientific and clinical rationale behind this important landmark study and the targets/drugs selected to date.
BSB also spoke with Dr Brian Druker, Director of the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer Institute in Portland, Oregon, who offers additional insights on the special project.