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Through Dr. Frits van Rhee's patient care and research, he has made a significant impact on improving the lives of those affected by multiple myeloma.
Dr. Frits van Rhee is a professor of medicine and clinical director of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Myeloma Center. Through his patient care and research, he has made a significant impact on improving the lives of those affected by multiple myeloma.
While the UAMS Myeloma Center has made a lot of progress in30-plus years in the treatment of myeloma, van Rhee continues to both advance the care of patients and extend their lives.
“We have already established, through our long-term follow-up care data, that myeloma patients can be cured,” van Rhee has said. He also believes the future looks brighter than ever, with the next 30 years holding great promise for his patients with myeloma.
In late 2021, under van Rhee’s leadership, the UAMS Myeloma Center became — and today remains — the first and only medical facility in Arkansas to offer the cutting-edge treatment of chimeric antigen receptorT-cell immunotherapy. For nearly all patients who have received the treatment so far, the results have been remarkable.
Van Rhee earned his medical degree from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and his Ph.D. at the Imperial College of Science, Medicine and Technology at University of London. Van Rhee trained in internal medicine and hematology in the UK, and in bone marrow transplantation at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. He holds the Charles &ClydeneScharlau Chair for Hematological Malignancies Research. He is an international expert on Castleman disease, with one of the largest populations of patients with Castleman disease in the world.
He also is an expert in multiple myeloma and other hematologic malignancies, with a research focus in immunotherapy. Van Rhee is a member of the International Society for Cellular Therapy, the International Society for Experimental Hematology, the European Group for Bone and Marrow Transplantation, the Royal College of Physicians (UK), the Royal College of Pathologists (UK) and the American Society of Hematology. He has UK board certification in internal medicine and hematology.