|  |  |  | | | | SALISBURY £1.1 MILLION BOOST FOR LEUKAEMIA RESEARCH | | | | |
| |  Professor Nick Cross, Director of the Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratories (WRGL) at Salisbury District Hospital
Release Date: 10th June 2003
People with a rare form of leukaemia are brought new hope as top Salisbury scientists are awarded £1.1 million by Leukaemia Research (LRF).
The money will pioneer new research in the city studying a sub-type of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), a cancer of the blood diagnosed in 750 people in the UK each year.
Doctors will home in on subtle differences in the blood cancer cells that distinguish rarer forms from its more common cousin 3⁄4 work that has important implications for the treatment of the disease.
The work is led by Professor Nick Cross, Director of the Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratories (WRGL) at Salisbury District Hospital, a leading leukaemia scientist. "Chronic myeloid leukaemia occurs when something goes wrong with the genes inside blood cells. Genes programme the way in which cells grow and divide. Disruption can lead to cells growing and dividing when they shouldn't 3⁄4 the underlying problem of leukaemia," explains Professor Cross.
He is particularly interested in the specific genetic faults that lead to this rare form of the disease. His team, which is part of the University of Southampton's School of Medicine, is developing a patient registry to identify chromosome error and thereby the genes which are involved.
Scientists know much more about the genetic errors that cause the more common version of CML 3⁄4 and recent progress has resulted in a new drug, Imatinib mesylate (Glivec), which specifically targets one of these errors, and which has now become standard treatment. The group in Salisbury aims to identify similar genetic errors that could be used as the basis for creating new drugs for the rarer disease.
Dr David Grant, at the LRF, says: "This is a very important study because it is will provide more detailed information about rarer forms of leukaemia which up until now have been difficult to treat. If we can develop innovative drug treatments for these forms of leukaemia, then we will be able to cure many more patients."
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