Lore Gruenbaum, Ph.D., was promoted to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) following the retirement of longtime CSO Lee Greenberger, Ph.D. on December 31. We talked with Dr. Gruenbaum about her new role and what’s on the horizon for blood cancer research in 2025.
“It’s a privilege to lead a group of dedicated LLS scientists to seek out and fund innovative science for every type of blood cancer,” says Dr. Gruenbaum.
As CSO, Gruenbaum is responsible for setting the strategy for the multi-million-dollar funding of LLS’ comprehensive grant programs, the unique Beat AML® Master Clinical Trial, and a growing number of biotech partnerships via the Therapy Acceleration Program. This comprehensive strategy is designed to generate near-term impact for blood cancer patients while also seeding the research pipeline for innovative therapies in the future.
Dr. Gruenbaum, who previously led LLS’s venture philanthropy arm, the Therapy Acceleration Program (TAP), says, “Science is there for everyone, so it should be accessible to everyone. I want to make sure the people who count on LLS understand where our money goes, and that our investments reflect the needs of patients and their families.”
Here are just some of the exciting advances Dr. Gruenbaum sees on the horizon.
More progress against acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
“We have a long way to go, but we are chipping away at AML, an aggressive cancer with a poor prognosis for many patients,” says Dr. Gruenbaum, who calls 2025 the “year of the menin inhibitors.”
LLS supported early research to identify the menin-MLL complex as a driver of AML and a few years later the work on the first inhibitors of menin-MLL.
The first ever menin inhibitor drug was approved recently, giving children and adults with certain forms of advanced AML a new treatment that is taken as a twice-daily pill.
And now, LLS is testing this new drug in its Beat AML trial in adults with AML. In 2025 LLS plans to begin studying a different menin inhibitor in children with acute leukemia as part of LLS’s first of its kind PedAL master trial for kids.
Another promising area is looking at ways to use immunotherapies like innovative antibodies and personalized CAR T-cell therapies for people with AML. These therapies are already helping people with other forms of blood cancer.
New technologies will improve drug development and clinical practice
Although still in its infancy, artificial intelligence, or AI, has broad potential to help us discover new drugs and provide quicker answers about whether a potential drug will work. The speedier answers during research will get drugs to market sooner and help us move dollars more quickly to the most promising research.
But Dr. Gruenbaum says AI and other technology is about more than speed. “Today’s technology allows us to ask questions we had no means of answering before, and the answers, in turn, can sometimes lead to even newer questions that can have big implications for improving treatment.”
LLS’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Gwen Nichols, talked recently about the promises and pitfalls of AI, sharing patient perspectives as part of an expert panel at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
Patients will have more treatment options
More than 20 years ago, the first targeted oral treatment changed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) from a terminal illness to a chronic one.
“Today, many other forms of blood cancer are becoming diseases you ‘die with’ instead of diseases you ‘die from,’ with some patients able to live their daily lives with minimal interruptions,” says Dr. Gruenbaum.
That’s why, in addition to searching for cures, scientists are looking for better ways to control blood cancers while limiting toxic side effects. The result is more treatment options—for example, healthcare providers can offer people with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) oral targeted therapies, and monoclonal antibodies alone or in combinations.
Not to mention, the FDA last year approved the first personalized CAR T-immunotherapy for a subgroup of patients with CLL. This treatment, if successful, could keep their cancer in check for decades.
“In this new era of treatment, LLS is there to give patients and families unbiased information so they can be confidently involved with their healthcare team in deciding which of these approaches make the most sense for them,” says Dr. Gruenbaum.
We’re moving closer to stopping some blood cancers before they start
“We don’t have screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies for blood cancer, but we’re working toward ways to identify and treat blood cancers earlier, or even better, to keep blood cancer from happening in the first place,” says Dr. Gruenbaum.
Among the approaches we’re going to hear more about are early interventions to keep people with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma from progressing to full-blown multiple myeloma. These may include more ‘traditional’ therapies such as antibodies or CAR-T but also innovative approaches such as switching people over to a high fiber plant-based diet to delay disease progression.
Therapeutic vaccines are also showing promise for keeping patients with certain forms of newly diagnosed follicular lymphoma asymptomatic longer. Today, the strategy for these patients is to “watch and wait” until symptoms appear. Emerging clinical data suggest that vaccines may keep patients symptom-free longer without significant side effects.
“I am incredibly excited about where we are today, which is a golden age for blood cancer research,” says Dr. Gruenbaum. “Technology is advancing at breakneck pace, we can gather and analyze big data like never before to get insights into cancer patterns, and we’re learning more every day about identifying unique tumor biology for individual patients so we can provide care that is more personalized to them. My whole team is committed to finding ways to encourage and support every form of research that can improve the lives of the patients and families we serve.”
Keep an eye on this page for periodic updates directly from Dr. Gruenbaum on these and other advances in blood cancer science.