is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the division of hematology/oncology. As part of his diverse research interests, including clinical trials and quality of life, he is focusing both in clinics and research in plasma cell dyscrasia.
Raj is a researcher I admire for his evidence-based approach and his precise understanding of clinical trials and disease biology, which allows him to offer key and practical insights to clinicians. Raj is also a friend, and he kindly agreed to talk about smoldering myeloma following the recent FDA approval of daratumumab in November 2025 for “adults with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM)”, based on the AQUILA trial.
On social media, Raj summarized his “approach to patient counseling post-AQUILA” in a single slide, to which
also contributed (see below). In the video, he walks us through the definition of smoldering myeloma, including high-risk disease, the seminal trials, and how he approaches this in clinical practice. For those interested in the censoring pattern I mentioned in the video (at 28:27), please go to the BREAKING-ICE App and select AQUILA-OS (with more to come on that in the future).
I hope you enjoy the video, including the great Q&A session with Sunny and Milos!
Slide posted by Raj on X, prepared with the contribution of Manni Mohyuddin: https://x.com/rajshekharucms/status/1986849622468317255
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