Projects we fund

Overview

The causes of childhood leukaemia are not well understood, and this project will look at the role of infection in the causes behind the development of the form of leukaemia known as ALL. It’s very hard to find any such infection without knowing what to look for, but Dr Ian and his colleagues have developed ground-breaking new methods to predict the type of infections that could be responsible. They are now using this approach to identify infections that are either unique or more common in children with ALL than in disease-free children. The most promising infections will be selected, and further tests carried out to assess whether antibodies against these infections can be detected in individual blood samples taken from children with and without ALL.

What difference will this project make?

There is a substantial body of evidence that points towards the involvement of an unidentified infectious agent in the development of ALL, and this project aims to provide important new information about the existence of this agent. The identification of a causal infectious agent would have the potential to lead to the development of a new vaccine that would be used against a viral infection, or an antibiotic or antibacterial-based prevention that could be used in the case of a bacterial infection. If the early acquisition of specific types of childhood infection serves to protect young people from leukaemia, this would also help in the development of a new means of prevention. The fundamental questions being addressed in this research have the potential to make a major impact on our understanding of the causes of ALL and for the development of diagnosis and treatments. The impact of identifying a causal infection would have a positive effect on the lives of many young people who are living with leukaemia, and also have broad application for a range of other diseases.