Xiao-Jun Huang, MD
JI Program: Cancer & Precision Medicine
Project status: Active/Ongoing
Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematologic malignancy. Recent years of rapid advancement in therapeutic landscape have resulted in deeper remission and longer survival in MM patients. However, many patients still relapse throughout different stages of disease course. This project seeks to investigate the role of comprehensive immune profiling in myeloma microenvironment by applying cutting edge technology CyTOF with a panel of extensive immune markers to identify the immune cell subsets, including cytotoxic and suppressive immune cells. This project is aimed to associate immune signatures with clinical outcomes including deep clinical response such as minimal residual disease (MRD) remission in MM patients at different time points of treatment course and establish a potential immune signature model, including difference between Chinese and American patients. The immune cells distribution and their spatial relationship with myeloma cells in MM bone marrow tumor microenvironment will also be explored using Imaging Mass Cytometry. It is predicted that distinctive immune patterns in bone marrow tumor microenvironment as well as in peripheral blood may help to decipher the biological mechanisms of immune reconstitution in MM patients who responded well to treatments and achieved more favorable clinical outcome including MRD remission.