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New ASH president: 'Extraordinary science' at genomic level must be brought to bedside
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Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, took over as president of ASH in January.
Anderson — who also serves as Kraft family professor at Harvard Medical School — specializes in the biology and treatment of plasma cell disorders and transfusion. He also has interest in working on new mentorship opportunities to increase interest in the field of hematology, as well as strengthening international leadership to improve patient care.
HemOnc Today spoke with Anderson — an active member of ASH for more than 30 years — about what he hopes to accomplish during his term, the areas of practice and policy in which he would like to see ASH become more involved, and his expectations for the field during the next 5 to 10 years.
Question: What was your reaction to being selected?
Answer: I was thrilled, grateful and highly honored to be elected president of ASH. I have had a long participation in the society, starting from my trainee days, and realize that it is the premier organization for hematologic disorders and hematologic malignancies in the world. Becoming president of ASH is the highlight and honor of my academic life.
Q: What excites you most about the opportunity?
A: We are in a time of unprecedented scientific discovery, especially in hematology. ASH has an important role to support the high impact and crosscutting research, quality of medical practice and access to hematologic care. As ASH president, I look forward to continuing the society’s commitment to training, educating, research and advocacy efforts in order to accelerate the development of scientific advances to benefit patients with hematologic disorders all over the world. I also look forward to grooming the next generation of hematologists through mentorship opportunities with experts in our field. Finally, I want to continue the society’s strong record of advocating for sound investment in innovative science — especially in precision medicine and immunologic therapies — as well as explore new avenues for increasing patient access to quality care.
Q: How has your clinical and research experience prepared you for this role?
A: My background is specifically in multiple myeloma, and in bench-to-bedside studies of novel targeted therapies that have transformed the treatment paradigm and improved patient outcomes. Coupled with this, I have had the privilege to mentor individuals who have gone on to be some of the best leaders in myeloma research and clinical care. I have seen a broad spectrum of the science and clinical activity at ASH, and have had the opportunity to participate in ASH’s mentoring efforts. All of this has been a wonderful experience, preparing me to help assure that basic scientific advances are translated to novel therapeutics. It has also allowed me to stimulate the next generation of hematologists to bring these advances to those patients who so desperately need them.
Q: What priorities have you established for y our term as p resident?
A: One of our many priorities is to assure that there is sustained funding at the NIH. ASH has been a longtime advocate of funding and has had a close relationship working with Congress to assure that priorities are recognized, and that hematologic research and clinical care are supported. Illustrating this is my work, and that of ASH, to continue to support the national cancer moonshot initiative. ASH has a particularly active role in this initiative in terms of making suggestions for priority of topics. Hematology has set the stage for many of the advances that are now being prioritized in the initiative, including precision medicine, big data, immunotherapies and pediatric care. In all of these areas, advances in hematologic malignancies have set the stage for bench-to-bedside advances in clinical care.
One example of this is my focus on multiple myeloma. We have had the opportunity to directly interact with the moonshot initiative under the big data priority by beginning to pull together clinically annotated profile data on patients with multiple myeloma. Ultimately, ASH hopes to support an international clinical database on multiple myeloma and potentially other diseases.
Additionally, ASH has launched a tremendous initiative on sickle cell disease, designed to address the global burden of the disease. We know an abnormality in the globin gene causes sickle cell disease, but there has been only one FDA–approved treatment, and there is no cure. ASH has a major effort convening an international coalition to combat sickle cell disease. We are increasing awareness and research, intend to foster the development of a clinical trials network and will publish guidelines on appropriate therapy.
Excitingly, we also will try to fast-forward the development of new therapies for sickle disease so patients can again appreciate the unprecedented progress that is being made in science. As a part of the sickle cell disease initiative, we want to be sure to address the training aspect and ensure we have a next generation of caregivers to bring these advances to patients around the world. We also are working on initiatives for immune therapies and developing new models for mentoring with programs that extend down into high school and through college, which stimulate interest in careers in hematology.
Q: What do you consider the greatest challenge in hematology , and what can ASH do to help meet that challenge?
A: The biggest challenge in hematology is to deliver on all the scientific advances for our patients. I previously mentioned the precision medicine idea. We have extraordinary science at a genomic level, which allows us to better understand the pathogenesis of disease. We need to better categorize diagnosis and prognosis in order to develop new therapies. ASH will continue to be a leader in this area. The challenge is to take these unprecedented advances and ensure we bring them to the bedside to improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.
No opportunity is greater than perhaps that for sickle cell disease. We know one genomic abnormality causes this disease, and yet we have not had any progress in treatment for decades. For this reason, ASH is taking this problem to heart and is increasing awareness, funding research, and bringing coalitions of experts to participate in research and conduct clinical trials.
Q: Is there a specific area of practice/policy in which you would like to see ASH become more involved?
A: I would have to say continuing to advocate for NIH support for hematology and hematologic malignancy research. The NIH has been and continues to be the main source of funding in our field. The efforts of the cancer moonshot initiative are all high priorities for ASH, and I will continue to support this in any way possible. We are reaching out to work with our government leaders to assure that the moonshot initiative can continue to make the progress that has been achieved to date. I have been privileged to be the representative of ASH in this area. It is a tremendous honor, but with that honor comes a tremendous responsibility to deliver on the promise to make it count for patients. The priorities of the moonshot are central to the mission of ASH. These include precision medicine, immune therapies, big data and pediatric research.
Q: How can ASH’s membership help you and the society’s other officers succeed ?
A: We are very blessed at ASH. We have about 17,000 members from all over the world. Their passion, volunteerism and commitment to the priorities of ASH is unmatched. I have had the honor of being a part of a number of nonprofit organizations that focus on hematology and hematologic malignancies, and I have never seen the level of passion and commitment that I see and share with my colleagues at ASH. There are opportunities to participate at so many levels, whether it is serving on committees, attending meetings or advocating for hematology. This will assure that the scientific and clinical advances will continue. There is a broad spectrum of ways that membership can help ASH ensure that the extraordinary progress to date will continue.
Q: What are your expectations for the field during the next 5 to 10 years?
A: We in the hematology field — whether it be in hematologic disorders or hematologic malignances — have seen a complete transformation in our understanding of disease, but even better in our treatment paradigm for patients. Within the last 10 to 15 years, we have had multiple new classes of targeted therapies for multiple myeloma and patients are living three to four times longer today than they were a decade ago.
In hematologic disorders, such as myeloma and sickle cell anemia, scientific advances will continue to come at a rapid pace. I expect that we will be able to deliver on the promise of precision medicine, precisely targeting the abnormalities that are essential for particular diseases. In so doing, we will have more potent, selective and better-tolerated medicines, which will be used earlier in the disease course.
Additional expectations are in the power of immunotherapy. As we have studied hematologic cancers, we have appreciated how genomically complicated they are at diagnosis, and how there is continual ongoing DNA damage and evolution as the disease progresses. We also can appreciate the power of the immune system, which has the ability to not only be potent, but also be selective and adaptable. It is therefore likely immune responses against multiple myeloma will overcome the continual changes that allow blood cancers to progress and resist current treatments.
My expectation is that there will be the development of immunotherapies, which can stimulate memory immune responses’ in patients against their own cancer. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in fact, we could generate a memory immune response in patients with myeloma using a combination of immunotherapies? These opportunities are no longer long shots. I think it is likely to be achieved within the next 5 to 10 years.
Q: Is there anything else that you feel is important to mention?
A: Two goals have motivated me ever since medical school. One has been to make science count for patients, and the other has been to treat patients as family. I mention these because they truly epitomize what ASH is about. I have been motivated to pursue these goals for many decades. This is a major attraction of ASH for me, because I believe ASH exemplifies these goals better than any other organization. – by Jennifer Southall
For more information:
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, can be reached at American Society of Hematology, 2021 L St. NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20036; email: kenneth_anderson@dfci.harvard.edu.
Disclosure: Anderson reports no relevant financial disclosures.