Therapeutic opportunities from dissecting the pre-B leukaemia bone marrow microenvironment

Investigators: Laurence Cheung, Rishi Kotecha, Sebastien Malinge

Project description

The advent of precision medicine has revolutionised the treatment of patients with cancer, whereby therapy is tailored to target the abnormal features of a patient’s cancer cells. This has been a successful approach, yet the cure rate is still disappointing in some cancers, which may come back or spread. The immediate environment surrounding cancer cells is well known to influence many stages of cancer progression. It plays an important role in how well treatments work and how cancers spread around the body. Therefore, combinatorial approaches targeting both cancer cells and surrounding cells promises to be an effective strategy to treat patients.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is the most common form of cancer in children, yet the microenvironment of this disease has not been studied in detail. We have established a unique preclinical model for a form of the disease where the survival rates of patients are inferior to most other forms of childhood leukaemia. Using this model, our research focuses on investigating the environment around leukaemia cells, leading to the development of treatments to disrupt the interactions between leukaemia cells and other cells in the surrounding environment.

Collaborators

• Jiake Xu (University of Western Australia)
• Charles Mullighan (St Jude Children's Research Hospital)
• Bo He (University of Western Australia)

Partners

• Children's Leukemia & Cancer Research Foundation (Inc.)