World Expert Gives Lecture at RPCI

Dr. Bruno Paiva, a world expert in flow cytometry, from the University of Salamanca, Spain gave a lecture entitled “Response Assessment in Multiple Myeloma: Clinical Significance of Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) Monitoring” on Thursday, December 15, 2011. Dr. Paiva visited with RPCI faculty and staff including members of the RPCI team who are conducting a correlative science study that examines the use of flow cytometric analysis of MRD in the national cooperative group trial: Single Autologous Transplant with or without consolidation therapy versus Tandem Autologous Transplant with Lenalidomide Maintenance for Patients with Multiple Myeloma (STaMINA).

This study is coordinated by the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT-CTN) and sponsored by the NIH/NHLBI (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute). Dr. Theresa Hahn is the co-principal investigator of the flow cytometry correlative science study along with Dr. Marcelo Pasquini from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Drs. Paul Wallace and Philip McCarthy are RPCI co-investigators on the project. Dr. Paiva has extensive experience on the use of flow cytometric analysis for MRD to predict for patient outcome after primary therapy for multiple myeloma. We anticipate a productive collaboration with Dr. Paiva and look forward to his visiting RPCI in the near future!