Dr. Jim Berenson, Founder of the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research and the Berenson Cancer Center, describes the Institute's work, which includes maintaining a large biobank of patient samples that support both its own research and that being conducted by external groups. This biobank is being used to develop new blood markers for faster disease diagnosis, to assess treatment efficacy, and to support drug development for multiple myeloma and other cancers. Real-time monitoring of patient symptoms with a mobile app is capturing critical, often-missed patient data and providing evidence of clinical trial success.

Jim explains, "Myeloma is a bone marrow-based cancer of a type of white cell called a plasma cell. These cells normally make a type of protein antibody that helps us fend off infections. And what happens in myeloma is that one of these types of cells goes rogue and takes over the bone marrow. As a result, these patients make lots and lots of only one type of antibody, and that protein becomes our tumor marker. They can get into trouble with their kidneys, their blood counts, their bones, and their immune system because they can become very compromised both by the disease and the treatment. Therefore, patients can develop frequent infections."

"It's diagnosed mainly through blood work, bone marrow examination, and radiologic tests. The latter used to be X-rays, but today it is MRI, CT, or PET scans. The bone marrow test usually demonstrates too many plasma cells that are clonal, meaning they are all of one type. So, usually, the bone marrow plasma cells make up only one-half percent. Myeloma patients have no less than 10% and up to 99% plasma cells, and they are all of one type. They all make one antibody because normally one plasma cell makes one antibody, but this is a clone that's grown a lot in the bone marrow. So, because the bone marrow directly releases proteins into the blood, there's a lot of the myeloma cell-produced antibody in the blood and/or the urine of these patients."

"We now have nearly 60,000 bone marrow and blood specimens collected over the last 25 years from our patients, and we collect them in a way that's very systematic. So we obtain blood weekly in the first month, and bone marrow when they undergo the procedure. And then after the first month, the blood is drawn and obtained for research and for the Biobank about every month. And this is a huge resource for not only our own research, which has uncovered two new blood biomarkers through the use of these samples. And we are also able to use the Biobank as a resource for other research groups and companies, whether biotech, pharma, or in vitro diagnostics, to see if they can find a new marker. So we send them a sample, and they can use it for their work."

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