Two University of Michigan professors, Jolanta Grembecka and her husband Tomasz Cierpicki, created the newly approved leukemia drug ziftomenib. Its recent FDA approval offers new hope for patients.

The approval, reported by UVA Today, has renewed the professors’ motivation to continue their extensive research, which began two decades ago with a mission to find a cure for the deadliest type of cancer, which mostly impacts people over the age of sixty-eight.

In 2008, the team, working under mentor John Bushweller, decided to focus on menin, a protein found in various human cell types that often functions as a tumor suppressor, inhibiting excessive cell growth and division.

The couple focused on menin inhibitors, targeted therapies used primarily to treat acute leukemias. Professor Grembecka noted that they were fortunate to receive funding to support their inhibitor research.

According to Professor Grembecka, patients who received various unsuccessful leukemia treatments have seen their disease go into remission after just one cycle of ziftomenib.

Mark Esser, Head of the Manning Institute, commented that ziftomenib represents a new option for the many patients who had previously been left without hope.