Ex vivo purging strategy for treatment of multiple myeloma

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ultimate goal of this application is to develop a novel ex vivo purging method using myxoma virus (MYXV), a rabbit-specific poxvirus, to improve the clinical outcomes in treatment of multiple myeloma (MM). MM is aclonal plasma cell malignancy that has to date resisted essentially all therapeutic strategies. Currently, the standard of care for patients with MM is treatment with high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASTC). AlthoughASCT can often increase the disease-free interval for eligible patients, the disease generally relapses. This cancer relapse is mediated by cells derived from one or both of two sources: myeloma cells remaining within patient's hematopoietic system that resist the chemotherapy, and/or residual myeloma cells that contaminate the autologous stem cell graft sample. Recently, MYXV, when used to pre-treat primary MM patient ASTC samples, was found to be able to delete all residual MM cells while completely