On July 30, 2024 City of Hope, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, and Institute for Follicular Lymphoma Innovation (IFLI) reported a $2 million, three-year collaboration to study spontaneous remission in follicular lymphoma, the most common, slow-growing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (Press release, City of Hope, JUL 30, 2024, View Source [SID1234645186]).
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Raju K. Pillai, M.D., City of Hope associate clinical professor, Department of Pathology, and director, Pathology Research Services Core Laboratories, and Steven T. Rosen, M.D., executive vice president and director emeritus of City of Hope’s comprehensive cancer center and its Beckman Research Institute, professor, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, and Ted Schwartz Family Distinguished Chair in Hematologic Malignancies, will lead the research. The collaboration aims to understand the tumor microenvironment in patients whose follicular lymphoma goes into remission without any treatment while being monitored over time.
City of Hope will analyze patient samples of follicular lymphoma and spontaneous remission of follicular lymphoma with leading-edge technologies, such as spatial proteomics and transcriptomics, as well as machine learning techniques to help explain why spontaneous remission of follicular lymphoma occurs in a rare number of patients and not in others. The study aims to determine the most relevant prognostic genetic, transcriptomic and microenvironmental factors involved in spontaneous remission of follicular lymphoma.
"Spontaneous remission in follicular lymphoma is not understood and we are excited and humbled to collaborate and support City of Hope’s prestigious team to leverage their expertise and suite of technologies and assays to better understand this phenomenon," said Michel Azoulay, M.D., M.B.A., IFLI’s chief medical officer. "IFLI is committed to funding innovative research projects, such as these important studies at City of Hope, to better understand follicular lymphoma and how we can improve treatments and outcomes for follicular lymphoma patients."
"The clinical spectrum of follicular lymphoma, which ranges from spontaneous regression on one end to highly aggressive disease at the other end, is influenced by the immune microenvironment to a large extent," Dr. Pillai said. "With IFLI’s support, we can study follicular lymphoma, leveraging City of Hope’s omics and spatial biology expertise to shed more light on why and how spontaneous remission occurs, with the goal that our discoveries will translate to advances in diagnostics and the next generation of therapies for patients with follicular lymphoma."
"I have shared the joy of my patients who have spontaneously achieved remission, and I have shared the worry, anguish and frustration of my patients whose follicular lymphoma has progressed or transformed," Dr. Rosen added. "I am thrilled to join with Dr. Pillai, IFLI and other collaborators to help answer the question ‘Why certain patients and not all?’"