Projects we fund

Overview

Survival for children and young people with the blood cancer acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is high, but in those where the disease comes back after treatment, the prognosis isn’t as good. Developing new, targeted treatments for relapsed ALL is notoriously difficult, mainly because relapse is rare, so conducting studies that yield significant results can be challenging. This means that children with the disease are missing out on effective treatments due to a lack of information to guide their therapy. Dr David O’Connor, Professor Marc Mansour and Dr Jack Bartram have formed a team to address this problem by establishing a nationwide study analysing patient samples and uncovering the cancer’s genetics and sensitivities to different treatments. This form of personalised medicine will guide which treatments the patients receive, giving them the best chance of survival. In addition, the team hope to use the samples to identify predictive indicators of cancer, commonly called biomarkers. This will help identify future children and young people with ALL who are at higher risk of relapse, while also potentially uncovering new targets for future treatments for ALL.

Potential impact

A quarter of all childhood deaths are from leukaemia, which is predominantly due to relapses. This study has the potential to make a significant change to the overall survival of children and young people with cancer.