Bone marrow stromal cells in multiple myeloma

Jovana Ilic, Christoph Kölbl, Bianca Schlierf, Marietta Herrmann, Drenka Trivanovic

Multiple myeloma is an incurable hematologic malignancy and the bone marrow microenvironment plays a key role in myelomagenesis, neoplastic cell survival and drug resistance. Current approaches to personalize myeloma therapy do not consider the significance of the non-malignant surrounding for defining predictive and prognostic biomarkers to identify the likelihood of response to therapy, disease relapse and/or predict overall survival. In this project, we aim to investigate fundamental insights into drug-regulated malignant and normal stem/progenitor cells (BMSCs), elucidating novel critical points and targets in multiple myeloma therapy. The PhD project “Interplay between senescence and stem cell properties in multiple myeloma and mesenchymal stem cells - implications for therapy and diagnostics”, is supported by Bayerische Forschungsstiftung and associated to the “Tumordiagnostik für individualisierte Therapie (FORTiTher)” consortium.

The project is focused on three main subtopics:

1) Stemness regulation during BMSC and myeloma cell interactions
2) Drug response and detoxification activity (cellular homeostasis) mechanisms of myeloma cells
3) Senescence dynamics in BMSC and myeloma cells communication