|  |  |  | | | | OXFORD SCIENTISTS LEAD FIGHT AGAINST BLOOD CANCERS | | | | |
| |  Dr Jackie Boultwood
Release Date: 2nd August 2004
University of Oxford scientists are taking up the challenge to improve treatments for leukaemia and related blood cancers after receiving grants totalling £140,000 from Leukaemia Research.
This money will be split between three projects at the John Radcliffe Hospital where state-of-the-art technology is being used to improve doctors’ understanding of these diseases.
Researchers at the Leukaemia Research Molecular Haematology Unit are studying myelodysplasia (MDS) — a life-threatening condition related to leukaemia. With this condition normal blood cell production malfunctions — the bone marrow fills up with large numbers of immature blood cells which can cause patients to become anaemic, prone to infections and bleed easily.
What’s more, a third of MDS patients will develop the blood cancer acute myeloid leukaemia - something the Oxford team want to investigate further. Armed with a grant of £50,000 they are using a cutting edge technique called DNA microarray technology. Dr Jackie Boultwood, Co-Director at the Unit, said: “This new technology will give us a wealth of information because we will be able to study over 30,000 genes in a single MDS cell.”
“We still don’t know why some patients with this disease will develop leukaemia. We need to decipher what happens after myelodysplasia develops and the changes that occur in the pattern of genes which might cause patients to develop leukaemia,” Dr Boultwood said. “The new technology is already giving us important insight into the disease and will pave the way for more effective treatments.”
This is one of three new grants made to researchers at the hospital. Two further Leukaemia Research grants, each of £45,000, have been made to research teams at the Immunodiagnostic Unit, which will enable them to study the cancer lymphoma, which affects nearly 10,000 people in the UK.
Dr David Grant, Leukaemia Research Scientific Director, said: “With a tradition for attracting the highest quality medical research in the world, Oxford has always been a central focus for Leukaemia Research’s work. This major award of £140,000 highlights our commitment to saving the lives of people with leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma and related diseases.”
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