This presentation is part of CLL Global Research Foundation’s first-ever Patient-Focused research symposium, featuring CLL Global–funded researchers sharing insights from their latest studies and clinical trials—showcasing how their work is directly improving outcomes for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
Expert Presenter:
William Wierda, MD, PhD
President, CLL Global Research Foundation
Endowed Distinguished Professor,
Jane and John Justin Distinguished Chair in Leukemia Research
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Download the slide deck.
Transcript:
Dr. William Wierda: So, good afternoon, everybody. I’m going to make some concluding remarks and bring some points home to emphasize. I’d like to first thank our speakers for this afternoon. I enjoyed hearing the summary of your work, and again, this work has been supported by the CLL Global Research Foundation, so you can see funding that’s gone into action. I’d like to thank the participants for listening to this program. The foundation was started more than a decade ago by Dr. Michael Keating, and we’re continuing it in his tradition. We have sponsored a number of collaborative meetings through the years, and in total, the foundation has funded about $44 million worth of grant funding and research that’s gone towards discoveries in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Ninety-five percent of each dollar or 95 cents on each dollar goes directly to research. I think that’s an important and key factor, and over the last couple decades, we’ve made really tremendous experience in – or tremendous progress in new therapeutics for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and it’s been, because of the research that’s been done and the work that we’ve been doing, both in the laboratory as well as in the clinic. So, I have just a couple, few slides here to emphasize a few points. The first point I want to emphasize is the importance in research.
That’s both laboratory research and clinical research, and research, as I’ve summarized here, helps us to understand the biology of CLL, the genetics and the risks for developing CLL. It helps us to develop new drugs and new combinations of drugs to treat CLL, as you’ve heard today, and it also helps us to develop new strategies to reduce the morbidity and mortality and improve the quality of life of our patients. And ultimately, we’d like to develop a cure. Without research, we have no progress, we have no advances. Everything stops. So, it is tremendously important for us to continue our work and research on CLL.
How do we do that? It’s through funding, and on this side, I’ve summarized some of the major places that funds come from to do this research for those of us in academic centers. It comes from the government, predominantly the federal government, but also state government does contribute research funds to do our work. Historically, the NIH has been the big source of funding, but we get funds from other notable places such as I’ve listed here. Our institutions do help us with funding research, particularly if it’s an area that they feel is important that they would like us to work on.
The foundation is a private, nonprofit organization that’s supported by philanthropy, and that’s where a lot of our funding comes from, and then we do also get funding from the pharmaceutical industry and other commercial entities to support our work. Our funding comes from various places. The amount of funding available, etcetera shifts over time, and right now, we’re in a bit of a challenging era for us, particularly with regard to funding, and there’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of uncertainty right now about our federal funding. They have cut back on the indirect cost, but also the funding rate is lower now for federal funding.
There’s uncertainty also that’s come into the academic environment, it’s more challenging for our younger faculty and our younger investigators. I think it’s important for those of us who’ve been around for a while to support the young people and to make sure they understand that things will continue and there is a future, and we need to continue to do our work. Also, there’s stress and strain on the commercial side because of cost of medicine and cost of care, and so again, a lot of uncertainty. The public needs to know about academic and healthcare environments, and again, as I said, our work must continue. One thing that I’m certain about is that the foundation will continue, and I’m certain that we will continue to have support from our community, from our patient community, and our work will continue.
This is a list of areas of CLL that we’re most focused – the scientific advisory board is most focused on, seeking funding applications for in areas that we want to study that are areas that need, we need progress in, in terms of our patients with CLL and the disease. We need to understand better resistance mechanisms and how to make our treatments better. Richter transformation, we didn’t hear very much about, but it still is a clinical problem that needs progress in advance. Dr. Ferrajoli nicely summarized immune dysregulation, immune dysfunction, and why that’s important to fix, because it results in an increased risk for infection and an increased risk of other cancers.
And we are dedicated to developing immune restorative strategies, and we need a cure for our patients, and that’s our ultimate goal. That’s where our work continues to be directed. So, again, I’d like to thank our participants. I’d like to thank our speakers this afternoon, and I’d like to thank all of the donors that have helped us in the past, and I look forward to working with you all, and I look forward to your continued support in our efforts to cure patients with CLL. Thank you.