Former UAMS Physician, Renowned for Introducing Benchmark Chemotherapy, Returns to the Myeloma Center

Former UAMS Physician, Renowned for Introducing Benchmark Myeloma Chemotherapy, Returns to the Center

Guido J.K. Tricot, M.D., Ph.D., recently rejoined the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Myeloma Center. While at UAMS previously, Tricot developed one of the most effective first-line therapies for multiple myeloma, now used around the world.

“We were thrilled to have Dr. Tricot rejoin our team,” said Frits van Rhee, M.D., Ph.D., clinical director of the Myeloma Center. “His vast clinical expertise and experience with cuttingedge research is invaluable to us,” he said. “He is absolutely helping us in furthering the innovative treatment we have offered here for the past three decades.” Tricot, who originally saw patients upon his return to the center now focuses exclusively on research.

Tricot’s longtime researcher, Fenghuang “Frank” Zhan, M.D., Ph.D., also recently returned to UAMS. Zhan, previously at UAMS from 2002 to 2008, was an assistant professor in the College of Medicine. He worked with Tricot at the Myeloma Center and later in Utah and Iowa. In his projects, Zhan focuses on genes and drug resistance, molecular genetics and the biology of myeloma, genomic classification of the disease, and identifying and targeting myeloma stem cells. Zhan, who holds the Morrison Family Endowed Chair in Myeloma Research, has received two grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health, totaling almost $3.14 million to study the molecular genetics and drug resistance of myeloma.

When Tricot, a hematologist originally from Belgium, was first at UAMS, he was intimately involved in developing and pioneering the Total Therapy approach to myeloma involving induction chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation consolidation, and maintenance. This treatment method has been adopted worldwide and has been responsible, together with the introduction of novel drugs, for the greatly improved median survival rate for myeloma, which exceeds 10 years, with some patients achieving cure.

“When I left UAMS in 2007, the program here was the largest myeloma program in the world,” Tricot said. “Many of us worked hard to build the myeloma program here into something unique.”

Tricot received his medical and doctoral degrees at the University of Leuven in Belgium and served on the faculties of the Division of Hematology/Department of Medicine at University of Leuven, and the Department of Medicine and Pathology at Indiana University in Indianapolis, Indiana.

He practiced at UAMS from 1993- 1997, then returned in 2000 to serve as director of clinical research for myeloma. In 2007, Tricot left UAMS to launch the Utah Blood and Marrow Transplant and Myeloma Program at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute.

In 2012, he joined the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City, Iowa, where he most recently worked as an emeritus professor of internal medicine with hematology, oncology, and blood and marrow transplantation. Through the past 20 years, Tricot researched multiple myeloma and treated thousands of myeloma patients.

After retiring from the University of Iowa, Tricot continued collaborating with his research team, working to defeat drug resistance, prevent relapse, and lengthen life expectancy. “Even with the most intensive therapies for myeloma, many patients still relapse, indicating that there is a small fraction of myeloma cells very resistance to chemotherapy,” said Tricot. “When I left UAMS in 2007, the program here was the largest myeloma program in the world, many of us worked hard to build the myeloma program here into something unique.”