C. Ola Landgren, M.D., Ph.D., has been honored with the 2025 Innovation Award from the HealthTree Foundation for his work on CORAL, an artificial intelligence tool designed to improve treatment decisions in multiple myeloma. Landgren is director of the Sylvester Myeloma Institute at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
CORAL uses deep learning to analyze standard bone marrow biopsy slides and predict genetic subtypes and outcomes for individual patients. This method eliminates the need for traditional genomic tests, which can be costly and time-consuming.
Landgren received the award during the 2025 American Society of Hematology conference held in Orlando earlier this month.
The scalability of CORAL means it could potentially be adapted to other cancers, making personalized cancer care more accessible and faster.
"Our goal was to remove barriers to precision care," Landgren said. "The computational research team for CORAL – supervised by lead research scientist Arjun Raj Rajanna – has worked day and night the past two to three years and in close collaboration with me. By using AI to interpret standard biopsy images, we can deliver critical insights in real time without waiting for complex genomic tests."
CORAL analyzed over 1,400 patient slides from three continents. It identified seven major genetic subgroups with accuracy similar to that of traditional laboratory tests. The model also uncovered 12 unique clusters within these groups, providing further insight into disease characteristics.
"The clusters tell us more than just what mutations are present," Landgren said. "They reveal how the disease behaves and responds to therapy, which is essential for tailoring treatment."
Traditional genomic testing requires resources not always available at many hospitals or clinics.
Ahlstrom commented on the broader impact: "The scientific potential with this study is huge in that it allows detailed spatial characterization of tumor and host immune cells in individual samples. Also, because slide imaging is inexpensive and widely available, this approach has the potential to be used more broadly in community clinics and in developing countries."
