SCOR: Specialized Center of Research

"Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a genetically diverse group of disorders that are caused by chronic inflammation in the bone marrow. This inflammatory state ultimately leads to failures in the production of blood cells and to leukemia. With the support of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, investigators from the Moffitt Cancer Center and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have joined forces to develop new interventions and therapeutic strategies that can be used to prevent and cure MDS."

"Using a new Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) grant from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, our team will work to develop more widely applicable targeted cellular therapies for leukemia and lymphoma. The results we’ve seen so far using T cell therapy is very encouraging, and while we hope these therapies can alleviate the need for bone marrow transplantation, extending this success to other blood cancers has been challenging for many reasons. Our overall goal of this SCOR is to extend our past successes in developing targeted cellular therapies so that these effective treatments can become standard of care for the broadest possible range of blood cancers."

"Our work in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) could change the way clinicians think about this disease. Outcomes in AML are dismal, and the standard treatments have major side effects affecting quality of life. We believe the lack of progress in AML is because we have been attacking leukemia cells when we should be concentrating on the root of the disease - leukemia stem cells. This research award will allow us to investigate the least toxic, most effective ways of killing AML stem cells including the development of new drugs and combination therapies."