December 2019. EDITOR project, focused on improving early detection and intervention of blood cancers, has completed a year with a positive balance in its forecasts. It started in its kick-off meeting held in January 2019 at Clinica Universidad de Navarra headquarters in Madrid (Spain). During this year the 13 institutions -from Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom- that form part of this international consortium have advanced in the knowledge of monoclonal gammopathies such as multiple myeloma, leukaemia and lymphoma. For that progress, the scientists based the research on the use of the latest techniques in genomic sequencing, the development of new humanized animal models of these diseases, and the compilation of large patient samples.a.

Among the scientific advances of the project, researchers have implemented protocols for advance genomics. Therefore, they used techniques such as RNA-sequencing or massively parallel single-cell RNA-sequencing based on small cell populations selected through high sensitivity fluorescence-activated cell sorting, a specialized type of flow cytometry. “The results obtained with these techniques are changing our understanding of myelomagenesis and clonal heterogeneity, and that could have an impact on the development of new therapeutic strategies,” says Dr Jesús San Miguel, Director of Clinical and Translational Medicine at Universidad de Navarra and the lead investigator. (Read more)