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The Society recently held elections for several open seats including two newly created seats which aim to include commercial sector representation.
Congratulations to our newest board members:
The following members have been reelected for another term:
Click the button below to learn more about our board.
Many SFPM stalwarts will be speaking at the PMNET meeting October 10-11, Riga Latvia. Please visit pmnetforum.com to register for this exciting meeting!
The researchers highlighted the effectiveness of a functional precision medicine approach, called dynamic BH3 profiling (DBP), in identifying targeted therapy for highly aggressive relapsed acute myeloid leukemia. The technique can measure the increase in mitochondrial priming, which signifies a higher potential for apoptosis. DBP can identify drugs with new or persistent activity in resistant tumors for the development of targeted in vivo therapeutic strategies.
The inherent genetic heterogeneity of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has challenged the development of precise and effective therapies. The objective of this study was to elucidate the genomic basis of drug resistance or sensitivity, identify signatures for drug response prediction, and provide resources to the research community.
SFPM board member Diana Azzam, PhD, and researchers at FIU developed a new approach to targeting hard-to-treat cancers. The method was used successfully for the first time for relapsed pediatric patients.
Cancer patients with advanced-stage disease have poor prognosis, typically having limited options for efficacious treatment, and genomics-based therapy guidance continues to benefit only a fraction of patients. Next-generation ex vivo approaches, such as cell mass-based response testing (MRT), offer an alternative precision medicine approach for a broader population of patients with cancer, but validation of clinical feasibility and potential impact remain necessary.
Tony Letai, MD, PhD, Professor at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and President, Society for Functional Precision Medicine, led a discussion on "Functional Precision Medicine for Advanced Cancer". As we look at novel, personalized therapies, how can we have confidence that they will work?
Noah Berlow, PhD, CTO, First Ascent Biomedical, and Diana Azzam, PhD, Assistant Professor at Florida International University, led a discussion on their approach to functional drug testing and using AI/ML to guide complex treatment decisions for advanced cancer patients.
Payel Chatterjee, Chief Scientist, SEngine Precision Medicine, led a discussion on the role of organoids in guiding cancer treatment decisions. The value proposition of “functional testing” (applying 100 or more drugs to fresh tumor tissue and seeing how the cancer responds) is that this very direct approach can identify unexpected drugs to try, and extraordinary results, for some patients.
Ex vivo drug response profiling is a powerful tool to study genotype–drug response associations and is being explored as a tool set for precision medicine in cancer. Here we conducted a prospective non-interventional trial to investigate feasibility of ex vivo drug response profiling for treatment guidance in hematologic malignancies (SMARTrial, NCT03488641). We conclude that ex vivo drug response profiling is clinically feasible and has the potential to predict chemotherapy response in individuals with hematologic malignancies beyond clinically established genetic markers.