Dr. Ari M. Melnick on Biomarkers in Lymphoma

Ari M. Melnick, MD, Professor of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, comments on biomarkers in lymphoma.

Studies of epigenetic regulation in lymphomas are identifying clinically-useful biomarkers and revealing biological insights into how lymphomas function. Lymphomas exhibit a great degree of epigenetic heterogeneity, which is an indicator of disease aggressiveness and increases the populations of cells that can survive chemotherapy and repopulate the disease.

Cytosine methylation patterns in lymphoma are reversible. The potential remains to inhibit DNA methyltransferases and overcome the negative effects of epigenetic heterogeneity.