Summer 2026
By Kathy Clute
Photography by Sam Ogden
Multiple myeloma (MM), a blood cancer diagnosed in about 35,000 Americans each year, is the focus of three recent grants totaling $708,106 from the Donaldson Charitable Trust. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists led by Irene Ghobrial, MD, are developing effective screening approaches for high-risk individuals and testing new immune-based treatments for the largely incurable disease.
Ghobrial is the senior vice present for experimental medicine and director of the Center for Early Detection and Interception of Blood Cancers within the Jerome Lipper Center for Multiple Myeloma. She is also the Lavine Family Chair for Preventative Cancer Therapies. Ghobrial leads a team of researchers seeking to detect and treat MM in its asymptomatic precursor states, preventing full-blown disease from developing.
The Donaldson Charitable Trust is funding community health fairs and laboratory staffing in support of PROMISE—Dana-Farber’s multi-institute study to screen 30,000 high-risk people for precursor conditions and learn why only some of them go on to develop MM.
People of African descent and those with a family history of blood cancer are more likely to develop monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) or smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM). PROMISE will support better prognostic models and personalized strategies for prevention and treatment.
What Dana-Farber is doing could be world-changing.
Deborah Taylor, Donaldson Charitable Trust
The Donaldson Trust is also supporting an investigation by Shonali Midha, MD, Constantine Mitsiades, MD, PhD, and Jacob Laubach, MD, MPP, into a new immune-based treatment called a T-cell engager. These medicines are designed to connect the body’s infection-fighting T cells with a marker on myeloma cells so the immune system can attack the cancer. However, the drugs must be given frequently, the benefits may not last, and some patients develop serious side effects. The research team will combine patient-focused research and laboratory studies to render this therapeutic approach more effective and less toxic.
“We are so honored to fund work that might help stop multiple myeloma in its tracks,” said Deborah Taylor, a spokesperson for the Donaldson Charitable Trust. “What Dana-Farber is doing could be world-changing.”