A Lecture I Recently Presented at the Summit on Lymphoid Malignancies & Multiple Myeloma 2015

I recently had the opportunity to speak at a lymphoma and multiple myeloma conference in Whistler, British Columbia. Yes, the attendees (and speakers who weren't recovering from Influenza B, as I unfortunately was) skied. But the agenda for the program was quite ambitious, and it included sessions on special populations and emerging therapies, which is where my talk fit in. 

Below are the slides from my talk. In this presentation, I cover the traditional therapeutic approach to treatment of AL amyloidosis, then move into an overview of new fibril-directed therapies currently in development. I included a few slides from a trial involving NEOD001, an anti-fibril mAb. The fully updated trial results were recently shared in an oral presentation at ASCO 2015 by Morie Gertz (Mayo). Click here for a link to the abstract. 

One of my posted slides (the one about anti-SAP therapy) suffered Grade 1 formatting abnormalities likely attributable to file embedding, not attributable to anti-SAP therapy or to the truly fabulous (but absurdly expensive) Manhattans at the Mallard Lounge and Terrace at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler.   

Successful #Amyloidosis Foundation Benefit: Art, Autos, and Amyloid

Tonight, I attended a fine benefit event which raised funds for the Amyloidosis Foundation. I was joined by two other people from the Karmanos Cancer Institute Myeloma and Amyloidosis team (Silva Pregja and Christy Houde). The event was held at the Inn at St. John's in Plymouth, MI. Here is a picture of the room: 

The Atrium Ballroom at the Inn at St. John's. Image downloaded from the I@SJ's website: http://www.stjohnsgolfconference.com/index.cfm

Very nice night with strolling dinner and a silent auction. Over a hundred people in attendance. The event Co-Chair was the daughter of one of my former patients. I had the opportunity to say a few words at the start of the evening describing the good work the Foundation has been doing for the last decade (educating patients and their physicians about amyloidosis - see link to video of GREAT symposium the Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University co-sponsored with the Amyloidosis Foundation; funding Junior and Senior level research grants to the tune of three-quarters of a million dollars in total).

Also while there, I had the opportunity to speak with some folks from Millennium, Alnylam, and Prothena - All sponsors of the event, and all in the business of developing amyloidosis therapies (Millennium - Bortezomib, Ixazomib; Alnylam - ALN-TTR02, ALN-TTRsc; Prothena - NEOD001).  

As for the auction, I made a successful run at at a nice piece of art:

Aptly named "Horses" (pardon less-than-professional-quality photo).
A nice little pic for the house and a few bucks for a good cause.