As part of our “Meet Yale Internal Medicine” series, today’s feature is on Natalia Neparidze, MD, assistant professor of medicine (hematology).
For Natalia Neparidze, MD, family experience with lymphomas and a fascination with diagnostic workups and novel therapies led to a rich career in hematology and oncology.
“I knew I wanted to find a space or profession where I could help people, and I thought that medicine provided that avenue,” said Neparidze, assistant professor of medicine (hematology). “Then during medical school, my aunt developed a non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which was an impactful experience for me that ultimately led me to career as a hematologist/oncologist.”
Neparidze focuses on multiple myeloma, a malignant bone marrow condition. “It currently has many available effective treatments,” said Neparidze. “But we still struggle to achieve long-term remission in patients with high-risk disease, and unfortunately, those patients ultimately succumb to their disease. So the first question I ask is, why does this patient have bone marrow malignancy? What are the driving forces that could be culminating in this bone marrow cancer?”
Neparidze is working to develop therapies which could lead to long-lasting remission and a possible cure for multiple myeloma. “Yale is a fascinating place in that it offers so many different opportunities and avenues—you can conduct clinical work, take your questions back to the research lab and explore pathogenesis, the etiology of the disease, the mechanisms of the resistance in cancers. We've been conducting clinical and therapeutic trials to develop novel designs for therapeutic strategies so we can improve treatments and long-term remission rates for patients with multiple myeloma and monoclonal gammopathies. Within our myeloma disease team program we have a variety of investigational clinical trials where we offer treatments from early stage newly-diagnosed myeloma through later diagnosis of relapse in recurrent myeloma.”
Another exciting aspect of her research work is the ability to collaborate with neighboring departments. “For instance, there are a couple of immunology labs that are very interested in working with us to understand why is it that patients develop this bone marrow disorder, and what is it that drives the disease to progression, and what can be done to intervene,” said Neparidze. “So for instance, multiple myeloma is a disease that's marked by development of monoclonal antibodies, proteins that should not be in the blood, and these proteins can then cause damage to tissues such as the kidneys and other organ systems.”
Looking forward, Neparidze says her work may evolve to study the antibodies in these patient samples and the antigenic targets to those antibodies in order to better understand what drives disease development. “Another aspect we may strive to develop,” said Neparidze, “Is pre-clinical mouse models in a variety of different hematologic malignancies including multiple myeloma. We are planning to partner with the Immunology Department on this pathway.”
The Section of Hematology is committed to advancing the science and practice of hematology by understanding the molecular basis of disease, and translating basic discoveries to the clinic. To learn more about the section, within YSM’s Department of Internal Medicine, visit Hematology.