Projects we fund

Overview

We helped to fund the cost of building and equipping the new Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre in Glasgow, which opened in 2008. It’s part of Glasgow’s Institute of Cancer Sciences (ICS), providing a highly interactive research environment where scientists and doctors work with the Beatson Institute of Cancer Research, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre. Now we’ve worked with Professor Tessa Holyoake, Director of the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre, to fund a new senior research post. The team will research the causes, mechanisms and treatment of childhood leukaemia, to help doctors improve how they treat children in the future. They’ll look mainly at acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). AML accounts for only around 15 per cent of cases of childhood leukaemia, but we know less about it, so aren’t yet able to treat children with AML as effectively as we can treat those with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). So there is an urgent need for better treatments.

What difference will this project make?

Because AML is much rarer than ALL, scientists can’t do the same large-scale studies of the disease in children. So they’ve had to use data and research results from adults and apply them to children. But we don’t really know whether the disease is the same in children as it is in adults. At the Centre, the research team is focussed on understanding the similarities and differences between adult and childhood AML, so that treatments can be developed that target childhood AML more effectively. Cancer research is expensive, involving costly equipment – so the funding we’re providing is essential to enable the team to carry out their day-to-day research activities. The work of the new research team will help scientists and doctors understand more about the specific nature of childhood AML so that new, targeted treatments can be developed to give children affected by it a better chance of survival.