Walter Capone: Identifying New Potential Standards of Care in Multiple Myeloma
This is the seventh in a series of profiles of people driving some of the most promising consortia in medical research. It is part of FasterCures’ Consortia-pedia project – which dissects the research-by-collaboration model and aims to establish a framework that can be applied broadly.
1. How would you describe the goal of CoMMpass to your mom?
We have found that multiple myeloma isn’t just one disease, but at least 10 different subtypes that all look different and therefore may call for different types of drug combinations to treat them. The MMRF CoMMpass Study is the mosaic of what it means to have myeloma. Only when the many pieces are brought together in the right pattern do we really understand how the disease begins and how it diverges in each individual patient over the course of time. The study is the cornerstone of the MMRF precision medicine Initiative and profiles 1,000 newly diagnosed patients by obtaining their clinical and genomic information at an unprecedented level of detail from initial diagnosis through the course of 10 years. We’re doing some of the most extensive genomic sequencing that technology offers today and we’re repeating that over time. By revealing the biological basis of this cancer in this manner, we accelerate new and even more effective therapies for patients, and perhaps the beginning of cures for many subtypes.
2. Involvement in CoMMpass goes beyond the scope of your regular day-job at MMRF. What keeps you motivated to stay at it?
I wish something like the MMRF CoMMpass Study existed at the time my father’s prostate cancer recurred just 5 years ago. The trajectory the MMRF is on, the nature of this particular study and research initiative that it represents are at a point very far ahead of many other cancers. The kind of work insights; and the discoveries the study is showing us is far ahead of what my dad and our family faced. Had we had this kind of insight on prostate cancer five years ago my dad might still be alive today, but unfortunately he didn’t benefit from the most advanced and promising therapies that our study is providing us today. So, I feel it is incumbent upon me and the MMRF to find a way to bring programs like the MMRF CoMMpass Study to as wide a community as possible in hopes that we can find new ways to attack this cancer, and to improve patients’ lives with this disease and beyond.
3. What has surprised you the most about the initial findings of CoMMpass? What weren’t you expecting?
I wasn’t expecting the variability in treatment selection across the U.S. and even within certain regions of the U.S. where patients seem to be treated very differently in different areas. That kind of variability is not something I would have predicted in a disease that only has six approved targeted therapeutics in terms of myeloma-specific and additional cytotoxic drugs that have been used for quite some time. How that is correlated to the molecular alterations in their subtypes of myeloma will be extremely important. These insights, along with the differences among patient outcomes will be some of the first of its kind in any cancer. This could help us identify new potential standards of care that we can make available to all patients regardless of where they reside in the future.
4. If you could trade places with anyone in the world for one week, who would it be?
I would love to change places with one of the research fellows in Dr. Carl June’s lab. Dr. June is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His groundbreaking work in T-cell biology has led to remarkable remissions of advanced cancer and his work is offering great hope for the emerging strategies in cancer immunotherapy, which is incredibly relevant to the MMRF and our efforts to cure myeloma. Dr. June is in the hunt for a cure, and has dedicated his entire career to harnessing the greatest machine ever invented to overcome disease--the human immune system. If there is a way to cure cancer, I am confident that at least part of the answer will derive from his work. Working, learning from, and being inspired by him for a week would be a tremendous experience.
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