MPN Workshop of the Carolinas 2024 | The inaugural MPN Workshop of the Carolinas: the importance of the meeting for the MPN community

Ruben:

My name is Ruben Mesa and I’m the president of Atrium Health Levine Cancer and the executive director of the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center, and joined here by my wonderful friend and professor of leukemia from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr Naveen Pemmaraju. Naveen, welcome.

Naveen:

Ruben, thank you so much for everything.

Ruben:

Well, we’re here today because Naveen and I have co-hosted several of these MPN-focused workshops. We’d have three when I was in Texas and it was a shared Texas activity, two during the pandemic that were virtual, one that was in San Antonio. And now we’ve moved it to the Carolinas, along with our colleagues here in the MPN world from the Carolinas, with a steering committee of my colleagues, Dr Mike Grunwald and Dr Rupali Bhave from our Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr Lindsay Rein from Duke Cancer Institute, Dr Brandi Reeves from the University of North Carolina, and Dr Alex Coltoff from the Medical University of South Carolina. 

So this is its fourth iteration, and we’re excited to be hosting this in the Carolinas on an annual basis. We’re aiming for August 22nd to 24th, 2025 for those able to join us.

Now this year we are in the beautiful city of Asheville, North Carolina. We’re in this great resort overlooking the beautiful mountains. Now, Naveen, if you want to share with folks a little bit, as we had speculated on a workshop concept, there’s a bunch of meetings out there, they’re the big annual meetings for societies and there’s a few smaller meetings. Why the workshop? What do you think the role of this is?

Naveen:

Well that’s right, Ruben, I really loved your overview. Basically, it originated you, me and several of our close colleagues, the kind of discussions we would have sort of after the meeting or before the meeting or later on, and we said, why don’t we have that as the meeting?

And as you said, we found that maybe shorter talks, so less slides, more panel discussions, less pre-planned programming and more organic debates and thoughts. And you’re starting to see that here.

What we have planned is sort of a perfect time as we enter a golden era in our MPN field, kind of past, present and future. 

The past, we have a plenary session here where we look at the discoveries of JAK2 and CALR, and featuring two of the most important scientists in that area, Ross Levine and Jyoti Nangalia. And then follow that journey, which is just 10 to 15 years, Ruben, where we went from diagnosis, just getting the diagnosis of the MPN right. Can it lead to prognosis? How is the patient going to do? And now we’ve entered this amazing area of Phase I clinical trial research. So it gives us a chance to pause there.

We’re also, you and I, featuring junior investigators, young faculty, rising stars, something deeply important to both of us as we have a passion for both education and promoting our colleagues from both a diversity and equity standpoint.

And then I think, finally, what’s really cool is there’s some hot topics in our area. You and I have had the chance to lead some of these clinical trials, but what about combinations of JAK inhibitors for patients, immunotherapy, and what about the latest findings from the lab?

So Ruben, I think that’s what’s exciting, a workshop feel for investigators by investigators to talk about those hot topics.

Ruben:

You know, and these meetings are really so key for us to really have a chance to digest, to chat both over social times as well as through the sessions to say, how do we really make progress? You know, we take a deep dive in the discovery science as it really helps to kind of fuel what we’re doing. I think we’re having a lot of discussions, again, what does progress look like? You know, what does progress look like in ET or PV or myelofibrosis? 

You know, we talk a lot about disease modification. What does that mean? What are the endpoints in terms of future trials?

We have some great collaborations with this meeting. We have folks who represent the FDA with a bit of discussion around the drug approval process and challenges with that. We partner with the MPN Research Foundation, that again helps to both sponsor a session as well as takes a deeper dive in areas they’ve had focus on, such as fibrosis or progression or other patient-related things.

We take a deeper dive in some of the less discussed MPNs, you know, mastocytosis and systemic mastocytosis has really risen in our field, in part because more and more options are a lot more to discuss. But again, even more atypical diseases, kind of where they fit in the mix.

Any final thoughts, Naveen?

Naveen:

Ruben, you just got me even more excited about our meeting. 

I think the other two aspects that you and I had envisioned, and we’re seeing it here, is the inclusion of our European colleagues, several of whom took great pains to come here to join us in this beautiful location that you picked for us in Asheville.

But I wanted to pick up on the last point you said, the focus that you and I and our field has had on the rare, and I would even say the ultra rare diseases. Our field of MPN has really been a world leader in that. You and your group pioneering the MPN symptom burden to reflect the quality of life. How are the patients feeling, how are they doing? How are they living? And then applying that to breakthroughs in diseases that, frankly, may only affect dozens or hundreds of people only, and our field has shown that. So I’m glad that you and I have featured that, we have entire sessions planned for that, so stay tuned for that.

Ruben:

You know, one final thing I’ll highlight before we conclude is we kicked the whole thing off, I think, as we always should, really grounded in patient care. 

Naveen:

Oh yeah.

Ruben:

And we started on Thursday with Ann Brazeau and the wonderful group from the MPN Advocacy and Education International with a patient meeting. And really, nothing is more grounding or rewarding than really interacting with patients, sharing with them where we are, as well as kind of being challenged and probed by them on the urgency of what we’re trying to do, on the importance of what we’re trying to do, as well as really having their voice be kind of a key part of that.

You know, as a cancer center director, I’m very mindful that we’ve really evolved to really be mindful of our community, to be mindful of our patients, and to realize that it takes a whole team, from the discovery scientist, the clinical investigators, the clinical research staff, our nurses, our pharmacists, but clearly our community, our patients, you know, and our colleagues in dozens of other specialties that are involved in care, for us to not only be able to provide great care, but to really try to move that forward, both with new therapies but beyond, you know, it’s beyond just pharmacology and pharmacologic agents. That’s a piece, but so much more is involved in the great care of MPNs.

So one thing that is wonderful about this field, it’s a very team-based field. It’s incredibly collaborative. It’s warm and inviting.

So please come and join Dr Pemmaraju, myself and our colleagues next year for the next MPN Workshop of the Carolinas, likely August 22nd through 24th in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And, again, thank you. Thanks, Naveen. 

Naveen:

Thank you, Ruben.