IBC 2025 | The genomic landscape of multiple myeloma and associated precursor conditions

First, I would like to introduce that for this talk we actually gathered and homogeneously analyzed 1,000 sequencing data, mostly whole genome sequencing of tumors from asymptomatic and symptomatic stages of multiple myeloma. Our main findings are twofold. First, we established a first list of more than 100 candidate genomic drivers, so candidate mutations that could play a role in the disease. And it’s the first time I think we are able to gather so many samples just because such datasets were not available in the past. Out of these drivers, some are new, and we are going to investigate them further in the lab. While the other source of novelty in our study comes from new estimates that we provide regarding or related to the time and the order at which these genomic events happen in the tumor. So we knew in the past that there were primary and secondary events and that some of these events could play a role in the disease progression. Now, I think for the first time we provide a more precise estimate for an interval during which these translocations, copy number alterations, any kind of mutation actually happens in a patient’s life. And we estimate that for many patients actually the disease could initiate during the first two decades of life and take between 20 to 30 years to actually develop into an active cancer, not before. The next steps in our study will be to look at the influence of treatment. If there is any therapy, does it influence the risk of its mutation? Do some mutations become more favorable under certain treatment? Or on the opposite side, are some mutations bad if you start treating these patients? And so we hope that with these datasets, this clinical follow-up that we are able to have at Dana-Farber, we can answer these questions in the next year or two.

This transcript is AI-generated. While we strive for accuracy, please verify this copy with the video.