Multiple Myeloma genetic study

Hackensack University Medical Center is sharing patient tissue samples in a nationwide search for genetic triggers of multiple myeloma, a rare but incurable cancer of blood cells in bone marrow.

Hackensack is one of 11 health care centers in the Multiple Myeloma Genomic Initiative, a three-year gene mapping program to study the molecular biology of the disease, develop target drugs and test the treatments in clinical trials.

Hospitals in the group will send untreated samples of bone marrow and blood to a tissue bank in Phoenix, which will provide it to researchers around the country.

The recent decoding of the human genome, the blueprint that regulates human life, will enable researchers to tailor specific drugs for individual cancer patients, said Dr. David Siegel, an oncologist who heads the initiative at Hackensack.

"We're going to design our therapy based on what their chromosomes, their genes tell us," Siegel said. Finding a cure may take a decade, but the tissue-sharing initiative will make clinical trials of new cancer drugs more efficient, he said.

The initiative is sponsored by the non-profit Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium of Greenwich, Conn., in partnership with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Besides Hackensack, others participating in the program include the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Boston, Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers of New York, the Roswell Park Cancer Institute of Buffalo and the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale/Phoenix.