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HARMONY presents new results at the virtual 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology

December 04, 2020 15:00 - x 00, 0 - 00:00

The 62nd Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) will be organized as a virtual event on December 5-8, 2020. HARMONY researchers will seize this opportunity to present exciting progress in two HARMONY Research Projects.


Novel Insights into Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Lars Bullinger from HARMONY Partner Charité Berlin, and colleagues, will provide novel insights into the molecular basis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). They have analyzed genomic data of around five thousand AML patients comprised in the HARMONY Big Data Platform. The results will be presented as an e-poster. 


 

Prof. Lars Bullinger, HARMONY Partner Charite:

‘In this study, we have analyzed genomic data of thousands of AML patients. We could confirm the co-occurrence of certain mutations and we could determine which mutations occur first and which later in the disease process. In addition, we have studied the association of mutation patterns with clinical outcomes such as remission, relapse, and survival.”


  Jan Geissler, Chair LeukaNET, Coordinator HARMONY Patient Cluster: 

"This proof-of-principle analysis of a large pool of 4986 AML patients reflects the importance of big data and how learnings about gene-gene interaction could help to understand the likelihood of success in subsequent therapies. Optimizing therapy choices and avoiding over-treatment, under-treatment or even ineffective treatment is life-critical for patients. Findings like those are difficult to gather from small data sets in single clinical studies. This is why the patient community engages in the HARMONY Big Data Platform to help drive research for better patient outcomes."


New risk stratification model for Multiple Myeloma

Mattia D'Agostino from HARMONY Partner University of Turin, thanks to the collaboration of many European partners, has identified new parameters to improve the risk stratification model of newly diagnosed patients with Multiple Myeloma (MM). The results will be presented as an e-poster.


 

Mattia D'Agostino, HARMONY Partner University of Turin:

Using data from more than 7,000 patients, we discovered that patients who are currently considered as ‘intermediate-risk patients’ constitute a quite diverse group with varying risk of progression or death. About half of them can be classified as low or low-intermediate risk, and about half of them can be classified as intermediate-high or high risk. Oncologists can use our improved risk stratification model to make a more precise prognosis and select the best treatment for patients with MM.”


  Ananda Plate, CEO, Myeloma Patients Europe, HARMONY Patient Cluster

"Clinical outcomes for Myeloma patients vary greatly, with survival ranging from a few months to more than ten years. The data that will be presented at ASH 2020 will allow us to better understand how we can improve the risk estimation in Myeloma. Improved understanding of risk for disease progression is critical to provide patients and physicians with specific knowledge of the expected disease course and, therefore, managing expectations, quality of life, and prognosis in both high and low risk disease. Data generation on this scale is extremely important from a patient perspective and MPE is happy to be a member of the patient cluster supporting this important European project"


HARMONY Big Data Platform

Comprising data from 45,000 patients with blood cancers, makes the HARMONY Big Data Platform one of the largest of its kind in the world. HARMONY scientists use the Platform to characterize the molecular landscape of Hematologic Malignancies, understand their pathophysiology, and identify novel drug targets. Big data analytics has the potential to transform the treatment of patients with blood cancers. The ability to personalize the treatment of a patient based on molecular understanding of a disease or risk stratification will provide treatment strategies in the future to optimize outcomes for the patients.


Join us!

Co-operative working groups, hospitals and academic institutions are invited to collaborate and contribute data to the HARMONY Alliance. Find out what we can offer you. Please read more here, or mail us.


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