The first step toward a cure: Inside the iCMLf CURE CONSORTIUM (iC3) Scientific Workshop
In June, leading CML scientists and clinicians from around the world met in Stockholm for the first in-person gathering of the iCMLf Cure Consortium. The mission is bold and simple: to make a cure for chronic myeloid leukaemia the expectation, not the exception.
Thirty years ago a diagnosis of CML was a death sentence. Targeted therapies changed that, and today most people with CML can expect to live a long life. But living with CML is not the same as being cured. For many patients it means daily medication for the rest of their lives, ongoing side effects, financial and emotional strain, and the constant worry that the disease could return if treatment stops.
That worry is the reason the iCMLf Cure Consortium, known as iC3, exists. The goal is to finish the job that targeted therapy started: to move CML from a disease that is managed to one that is genuinely cured. In June, the people who could make that happen came together in person for the first time.
Why a cure is still out of reach
The barrier to a cure has a name: leukemic stem cells. These are the cells that survive treatment, lie quietly in the bone marrow, and can reawaken the disease once therapy is withdrawn. Fewer than half of patients are currently able to attempt stopping their medication, and of those who try, around half relapse. Until these hidden cells can be cleared, lifelong treatment remains the only safe option for most people.
As the consortium leadership explained at the meeting, more than twenty-five years of research into these cells has still not delivered a cure. The reasons they persist are complex and differ from one patient to the next. No single laboratory, however brilliant, has the scale, the patient samples, or the breadth of expertise to solve this alone. That is the case for working together.
From four teams to one mission
The workshop was deliberately not a showcase of finished work. It was designed to start the conversations that turn separate research groups into a single, coordinated effort. The consortium brings together four international research teams, each examining a different piece of the puzzle, supported by three shared facilities that handle samples, data analysis, and laboratory modelling so that every group can benefit.
Over the course of the meeting, teams shared early findings and, just as importantly, offered each other tools, samples, and expertise. One group studying how the disease is read at diagnosis offered to share its findings with another team validating those same signals as future tests. Researchers developing new ways to attack leukemic stem cells offered access to their laboratory models. Clinical teams from several continents offered patient samples to help confirm which discoveries hold true across different populations. This spirit of pooling resources is exactly what the consortium was built to encourage.
Bringing discovery to patients
A consistent thread across the day was the focus on real decisions that patients and doctors face. When is it safe to try stopping treatment? Who is likely to succeed, and who needs a different approach? The translation team set out a vision in which a detailed profile taken at diagnosis could one day guide each person toward the right therapy from the start, and a reliable test could give patients real confidence about when, or whether, to stop.
Encouragingly, researchers reported progress toward simpler tests that rely on a standard blood sample rather than more invasive procedures, which would make any future approach far easier for patients everywhere, including in lower-resource settings where access to specialist care is limited.
Led by the people who transformed CML
The consortium is led by scientists and clinicians who helped develop the first targeted therapies for CML and who continue to define how the disease is treated worldwide. The same leadership that turned CML from fatal to treatable is now turning its attention to the final step. The meeting was chaired by Professor Andreas Hochhaus, with Professor S. Tiong Ong, Professor Ravi Bhatia and Professor Tim Hughes leading the scientific sessions, and the initiative draws on the vision of Professor Brian Druker, whose work made the modern era of CML treatment possible.
What happens next
The workshop closed with a clear sense of direction. Over the coming months the teams will agree shared goals, begin exchanging data, and build the early collaborations that prove the consortium can deliver as a group. As the leadership put it, the day was the start of a long but promising journey toward the goal of curing the great majority of patients within ten years.
It is an ambitious target. But as one message from the meeting captured it: what was impossible a decade ago is achievable today. With the right people, the right tools, and the support to bring them together, a cure for CML is within reach.
We invite you to be part of that mission.
To learn more about the International CML Foundation and the iC3 Cure Consortium, visit www.cml-foundation.org, or contact us at info@cml-foundation.org
