Ross Levine on Blood Cancer, Cancer Genetics, and New Therapies

Ross L. Levine, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, joins The Future of Medicine for a conversation about blood cancer, cancer genetics, and how a laboratory discovery can eventually lead to new treatments.

More than 20 years ago, Levine helped discover a genetic change in JAK2, a gene that plays an important role in controlling blood cell growth. When JAK2 is altered in certain ways, the signal that tells blood cells to grow can become stuck in the “on” position, contributing to a group of chronic blood cancers called myeloproliferative neoplasms. That discovery helped give doctors a new way to diagnose these diseases and helped pave the way for targeted drugs.

In this episode, Levine looks back on the moment he first saw the mutation in sequencing data and realized the finding could have immediate consequences for patients. He also explains why the first generation of JAK2-targeted drugs, while helpful for reducing symptoms and improving outcomes, generally does not eliminate the underlying cancer — and why researchers are now working on new approaches that may target the disease more effectively.

The conversation then expands to a bigger question: how much more is there still to learn from the genetic information contained in cancer cells? Levine describes how studying DNA from increasingly large numbers of patients continues to reveal unexpected patterns, new biological pathways, and possible treatment targets. He also discusses the growing importance of combining DNA data with other information, including how a cancer responds to treatment, how it changes over time, and what doctors can see in blood tests or under the microscope.

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