Our Research

The Hematologic Malignancy Program is closely associated with the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, consistently rated among the nation’s top 10 cancer programs by U.S.News & World Report. Patients benefit directly from Duke’s leadership in cancer research, allowing us to offer tomorrow’s innovations today in the field of cell signaling, stem cell therapies, cellular targeting, tumor immunology and drug development. Recent advances in our program include:

1. Establishment of new drug combinations as potentially effective therapy for patients with refractory hematologic malignancies.

2. Phase I evaluation of new monoclonal antibodies including chimeric 81C6 directed toward tenascin for treatment of lymphoma and diphtheria-linked anti-IL-3 for patients with leukemia.

3. Combination of monoclonal antibody therapy with non-myeloablative allogeneic therapy for patients with hematologic malignancies.

4. Discovered that human chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells overexpress NOS2 and that NOS inhibitors induce apoptosis and death of the malignant cells. This estab­lishes a new molecular target of therapy in this malignancy.

5. Identification that a number of receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases are constitutively activated in CLL, CML, MDS and ALL and may produce constitutive activation of the endogenous Abl and Arg kinases.

6. Establishment of a cell culture system whereby normal human cells are converted to a tumorigenic state by introduction of a defined set of genes. This has led to a recently discovered novel pathway involved in tumorigenesis which may lead to identifying new targets for anti-cancer therapy.

7. Identification of a PI3K-independent signaling pathway for chemotaxis which is primed differently by different growth factors, including GM-CSF and insulin from the previously known PI3K-dependent pathways.

8. Identification of the importance of pathways involving Wnt and Endoglin in vasculogenesis and hematopoiesis.

9. Collaborations with other centers noting the importance of increased expression of CD123 in the stem cell population of those with acute myelogenous leukemia.

10. Identification of increased expression of CD52 in those with myeloma, as well as mantle cell lymphoma, leading to trials of subcutaneous therapy with new monoclonal antibodies for these illnesses.