News from Mt. Sinai on their Panobinostat trial for MF

Drs. Ron Hoffman and John Mascerenhas of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York have reported positive outcomes from their Phase I trial of panobinostat in myelofibrosis patients. Their article published in the British Journal of Haematology states that significant improvement occurred for patients on low dosages of Panobinostat.

Click here for the full article from Mt. Sinai's Medicine Matters blog.

Click here for the study abstract.

April patient events

Our partner on the MF Challenge, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, is hosting a few events in April aimed at educating the people living with blood cancer: 

Patient in and around Sioux Falls, SD are invited to attend a seminar on Myelofibrosis. Dr. Ahmed Galal will be speaking about managing and living with Myelofibrosis. More information can be found on their flyer located here. 

For Illinois, patients are invited to attend the Illinois Blood Cancer Conference taking place on April 20th in Oakbrook. There will be presentations on latest treatments and research as well as breakout sessions covering long term survival and nutrition. This free conference covers blood cancers in general, but could be of interest to MPN patients and their caregivers. 

Finally, several patient support groups are meeting in April including Houston, TX,  Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, PA, and Los Angeles, CA. 

Playing catch-up

2012 MF Challenge grant recipient
Ann Mullally of Harvard in her lab

It's the beginning of March 2013 and judging from our last post date this space has been silent for too long. It has nothing to do with the level of activity going on in the world of research for PV, ET and MF, though. On the contrary, 2012 was a very busy year.  

In July we wrote the first checks for the MF Challenge, a joint grant program funded by MPN Research Foundation and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, whose aim is to help discover novel ideas of how to stop or reverse fibrosis. At the sime time we continued to fund our 6 New Investigator and Established Investigator grants. 

September brought us Blood Cancer Awareness Month, and a series of posts including how the Foundation is forging partnerships with the new MPN groups popping up. 

Northwestern's Dr. Brady Stein at the
Chicago MPN Patient Symposium

September was also our Chicago Patient Symposium. We videotaped the proceedings, which allowed patients and doctors to get together and learn. November had us checking for new MPN videos. In December our Scientific Advisory distilled the highlights from ASH's annual meeting as they pertained to the MPNs.

Judging by the first quarter of 2013, it will be another banner year in which we put MPN research at the forefront of our mission and direct funds in the manner that will best serve patients. For us this means the funding of a second installment of the MF Challenge grant program, continuing to publish our free patient newsletter, and finding a way to work with industry  to direct funds and attention to the MPNs. 

Soon we'll have progress to report on our MF Challenge, New Investigator and Established Investigator grants. We're excited to learn how their insights could impact MPN patients everywhere and to see what else this year brings. We can't wait to share with you all, a bit more frequently going forward.