Rekha Rao, PhD, assistant professor, University of Kansas Medical Center, discusses the challenges that exist in the future of treatment for patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

One of the biggest challenges of treating patients with MCL, says Rao, is that patients eventually develop resistance to almost all therapies.

In the case of p97 inhibitors, Rao says that there should be effort dedicated to developing newer analogs of inhibitors that can work in patients who develop resistance to existing p97 inihibitors.

Rao also proposes that the combination of p97 inhibitors with ibrutinib (Imbruvica) may hold promise for patients with relapsed MCL.

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Potential Challenges in the Future Treatment of Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Rekha Rao, PhD, assistant professor, University of Kansas Medical Center, discusses a study of the synergistic activity of p97 inhibitors with histone deacetylase 6 inhibitors in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

P97 is an ATPase that restores protein to homeostasis in cells and promotes retrotranslocation of misfolded proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), says Rao.

Researchers are working to target MCL with new agents that can induce ER stress. And when p97 function is inhibited, ER Rao adds, the ER becomes stressed, suggesting that p97 inhibitors could be effective the treatment of MCL.

Rekha Rao, PhD

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Potential Challenges in the Future Treatment of Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Study of P97 Inhibitors in Mantle Cell Lymphoma