Little Rock, Arkansas (Press Release) - World-renowned multiple myeloma researcher and clinician Gareth Morgan, M.D., Ph.D., today was named director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (MIRT).

Morgan, who is cur­rently a clinician and researcher with the Myeloma UK Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, will begin at UAMS on a full-time basis in July. He is a director of Myeloma UK, a respected patient organization, as well as a member of the Scientific Board of the Inter­na­tional Myeloma Foundation, Scientific Secretary for the UK Myeloma Forum and founding director of the European Myeloma Network.

Morgan succeeds Bart Barlogie, M.D., Ph.D., the institute’s founder who has chosen to step down as director but who will remain to focus on clin­i­cal care and research.

“I am thrilled to be taking up this new post and very much look forward to the oppor­tu­ni­ties it presents,” Morgan said. “With sup­port from UAMS, I will build on the excellent work done to date as well as its reputa­tion as world leader in myeloma treat­ment to develop inno­va­tive ap­proaches for all myeloma patients and to char­ac­ter­ize and cure high-risk myeloma.

“Myeloma is dif­fer­en­t for each individual patient, as dif­fer­en­t as one fingerprint is from another. It’s critical to develop tech­nolo­gies that can read this fingerprint, and to determine what is driving the disease in each individual patient, so we can kill or normalize the behavior of the myeloma cells. There isn’t a single treat­ment for myeloma but rather, there are many dif­fer­en­t, personalized treat­ment strategies, one of which is appro­pri­ate for a particular individual patient.”

Morgan said going forward, “We envision estab­lish­ing a series of clin­i­cal trials investigating new treat­ments based on each patient’s unique myeloma fingerprint.”

“Gareth Morgan is an inter­na­tionally recog­nized and respected scientist and clinician who works in the field of the molecular genetics and treat­ment of blood cell cancers — in particular, myeloma,” said UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn, M.D. “The work he will do carries sub­stan­tial promise of not only supple­menting the research directions already being pursued within the institute, but in devel­op­ing treat­ments with minimal toxicity.”

In sup­port of the Myeloma Institute and Morgan’s recruitment, Gov. Mike Beebe has provided $5 million from General Improvement Funds. In a $3-for-every-$1 match, philanthropic con­tri­bu­tions raised by UAMS have provided another $15 million for a total of $20 million. Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, at the recom­mendation of Carol A. Ammon, chair of the Myeloma Institute Advisory Board, and her spouse Marie Pinizzotto, M.D., made the first matching gift of $5 million. The $20 million will help pay for the construction of new laboratories and the institute’s research pro­gram.

“As Governor, I am very pleased to provide funding to sup­port the Myeloma Institute and Dr. Morgan’s re­search,” Gov. Mike Beebe said. “What has been built at the institute by Dr. Barlogie is truly remarkable and has enabled Arkansas to become a world leader in the research and treat­ment of multiple myeloma. With this funding and Dr. Morgan’s guidance, I’m confident the UAMS Myeloma Institute will con­tinue pushing forward to fulfill its mission in inno­va­tive and dynamic ways.”

Morgan said he will align the expertise of the UAMS Myeloma Institute with other world-class research and treat­ment institutions around the world, especially with the Myeloma UK Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. UAMS’ position as a leader for the treat­ment of myeloma will make it a central player in this global col­lab­o­ration.

Barlogie, director of the UAMS myeloma pro­gram since 1989, is confident that Morgan is the right person to assume the reins and welcomes the oppor­tu­ni­ty for the two of them to work together.

“With a common vision and shared philosophical ap­proach, Dr. Morgan and I can infuse the myeloma pro­gram with a forward-moving emphasis on utilizing research and tech­nology to benefit patients,” Barlogie said. “By bringing together our collective ex­peri­ence, we will be optimally poised to implement the latest scientific and treat­ment ad­vances, while maintaining a focus on each individual patient.”

Founded in 1989, the myeloma pro­gram at UAMS has seen more than 11,000 patients from every state in the United States and more than 50 foreign countries and has per­formed more than 9,000 periph­eral blood stem cell trans­plants. Barlogie and his colleagues fundamentally have changed the course of the disease and its effects through new diagnostic procedures and novel thera­peutic interventions.

“We have excellent results leading to the cure of patients with myeloma. Now the major chal­lenge relates to improving the clin­i­cal out­come of patients with genomically defined high-risk myeloma, a subtype of myeloma with a current median survival rate that does not exceed three years,” Barologie said. “Focusing research on this high-risk subtype of myeloma will also have strong implications for improving the out­comes of low-risk disease.”

The work Morgan proposes to develop is already in progress at the Myeloma Institute through the appli­ca­tion of commercially avail­able drugs that target unique oncogene mutations.

The ex­pec­ted five-year survival rate for a newly diag­nosed myeloma patient treated at the UAMS Myeloma Institute is 74 per­cent, versus 43 per­cent for a com­parable patient pop­u­la­tion in the NCI cancer statistics (SEER) data base. Newly diag­nosed patients with genomically defined low-risk disease treated at the Myeloma Institute can ex­pec­t a median survival exceeding10 years. Based on 25-year follow up of patients enrolled in the first “total ther­apy” clin­i­cal trial at the institute, a cure plateau of 15 per­cent has been firmly estab­lish­ed.

Morgan holds more than $10 million of research grant funding from various gov­ern­mental and private philanthropic sources.

“At the UAMS Myeloma Institute I envision conducting focused clin­i­cal studies investigating how to im­prove the current excellent clin­i­cal results obtained at the UAMS Myeloma Institute as well as investigating how such ad­vances can be translated into wider pop­u­la­tions by engaging in large phase-three studies in­­clud­ing patients both in the United Kingdom and USA,” Morgan said.

Morgan received his doctorate on the genetics of leukemia from the University of London in 1991 and his bachelor of medicine in 1981 from the Welsh National School of Medicine. Since 2003, he has served as a professor of Hematology and director of the Centre for Myeloma Research at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research in London, Europe’s largest com­pre­hen­sive cancer institute. Morgan is a director of Myeloma UK, the UK’s respected patient organization, as well as a member of the Scientific Board of the Inter­na­tional Myeloma Foundation and Scientific Secretary for the UK Myeloma Forum. He is also a founding director of the European Myeloma Network.

UAMS is the state’s only com­pre­hen­sive academic health center, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a statewide network of regional centers; and seven institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute, the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging and the Translational Research Institute. It is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has more than 2,865 students and 785 medical residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, in­­clud­ing about 1,000 physicians and other professionals who provide care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS regional centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or www.uamshealth.com.

Source: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.