
Lung-Ji Chang, Ph.D.
University of Florida
"Immunotherapy targeting multiple myeloma specific antigens"
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. Each year, nearly 13,000 Americans are diagnosed to have MM. The average survival of myeloma patients is about 3 years. The goal of treatment is to relieve symptoms, since chemotherapy and even transplant rarely lead to permanent cure. Recent progress in immunotherapy has offered - 10-30% cure rate in several cancer trials. We propose to train the patient's own immune cells to recognize and destroy myeloma cells using our state of the art immunotherapeutic strategies. This approach can be used to effectively cure MM patients in future trials.