NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Celgene has given the Myeloma Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences $10 million to create the Bart Barlogie Center for Molecular Diagnostics and the Celgene Distinguished Endowed Chair for Molecular Therapeutics, the university announced on Monday.
Since the myeloma program at UAMS was founded in 1989, the school has seen more than 11,000 patients and performed more than 9,000 peripheral blood stem cell transplants, UAMS said. It further noted that since 2001, the number of myeloma survivors has increased by 57 percent.
The use of genomic and other novel diagnostic methods "will enable [the] development of precision medicine strategies aimed at targeting the distinct genetic signals that affect each patient's disease," Gareth Morgan, director of the UAMS myeloma institute, said in a statement. "Through a deeper understanding of the molecular changes that take place in myeloma, the Myeloma Institute will be better equipped to identify the most appropriate drug therapies that will produce the best outcomes with minimal toxicity and that will make a cure truly achievable for the majority of patients."