C. Ola Landgren, Leader, Translational and Clinical Oncology Program/Experimental Therapeutics at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, shared on LinkedIn:
“On November 1, I mark six years at the University of Miami. I am proud of what we have built together, and even more excited about what comes next!
At the Sylvester Myeloma Institute, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami we have assembled a fantastic team driven by excellence, innovation, and teamwork. Our collaborators in Miami and worldwide expand what we can discover and accomplish for patients.
Our vision: develop transformative therapies and precision medicine approaches to achieve cures and improve quality of life for people with multiple myeloma.
Our mission: accelerate progress through innovative clinical trials, translational research, and precision medicine.
Our next chapter connects novel drug development with disease biology, epigenetics, and computational science. It places wellness, survivorship, and patient experience alongside treatment efficacy. It invests in education, global collaboration, and partnerships with philanthropy and industry to turn promising ideas into advances.
This requires scientific leadership as innovative as the treatments we are developing.
That is the culture I want us to keep building: open calls for trial concepts, transparent resource allocation, independent review, and rotating leadership. A culture where emerging investigators can lead studies, direct budgets, and test questions that challenge prevailing views.
A seat at the table is a beginning. The opportunity to change the agenda is where scientific independence becomes real.
Guidelines should remain living documents, evolving with better evidence. Consensus is useful, the experiment that overturns it may be even more useful. Patients benefit when competing hypotheses receive a fair test and findings are judged by rigor and relevance.
I am grateful to our team, collaborators, supporters, and the patients and families whose partnership gives this work its purpose.
Dr. Dipen Parekh’s emphasis on ‘Mission First, Always,’ ‘Run the U Better,’ and ‘Own Our Culture’ provides a compelling framework: keep patients at the center, improve how we translate discovery into care, and share responsibility for a culture of excellence, openness, and teamwork.
The next breakthrough may come from someone who has never chaired a committee. Let’s build a future in which their idea can travel faster than their invitation.
Six years in, I am more excited than ever about what we can make possible together at the U!”
Other articles about multiple myeloma on OncoDaily.