What are BET inhibitors? Dr. Lucia Masarova, an MPN specialist and researcher, explains what BET inhibitors are and discusses the role these therapies may play in the treatment of myelofibrosis.
Dr. Lucia Masarova is an MPN Specialist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Learn more about Dr. Masarova.
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Transcript
Katherine Banwell:
We’re starting to hear more about BET inhibitors. Could you explain what they are and how they work to treat myelofibrosis?
Dr. Lucia Masarova:
BET inhibitors are abbreviations for bromodomain inhibition, which is a very relevant regulator of transcription factors that play a significant role for making the blood cells.
So, just differentiation of red cells or platelets, as well as very significant role in cytokines regulation. We know that myelofibrosis is a disease that is defined by overactive JAK-STAT Pathway that ultimately leads to increased cytokines.
However, there are other pathways that play a significant role, and one of the very major ones is NF-kB, where the BET inhibitor come in play because they target it and help us to decrease the cytokine load as well as alter the differentiational block that happens in the red cells or megakaryocytes or platelets in these patients.
So, the combination of bromodomain inhibition, or even using it as a single agent on or after refractory I think is a very promising tool that excludes the only JAK inhibition that we’ve been developing for diseases and opens the door for combination strategies that we were so many years thinking through and trying to find out.
This is really the most promising compound or way of altering the disease background that we can see.