|  |  |  | | | | £1 MILLION BOOST FOR LEUKAEMIA RESEARCHERS IN DUNDEE | | | | |
| |  Professor Eric Wright.
Release Date: 10th September 2002
So small it is impossible to see with the naked eye - but so long that if magnified to the thickness of a single strand of cotton it would stretch for 60 miles.
Twisted 600 million times in a space smaller than a pin head, it must remain untangled and undamaged for normal, healthy development.
Such is human DNA, the raw material studied by leukaemia scientists at the University of Dundee, who have just been awarded a 1 million by Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF) to continue their pioneering work.
Key to beating leukaemia is a greater understanding of how the 30,000 or so genes contained on this fragile 'lifeline' in every cell control our growth and development.
With billions of new blood cells created every day, damage to just one cell, or a mistake in copying its information from mother to daughter cell, could cause leukaemia or a related disease.
The £1 million grant supports complex and highly skilled work led by Professor Eric Wright at the LRF Radiation Leukaemogenesis Programme, University of Dundee Medical School at Ninewells Hospital.
Professor Wright is a world leader in research to understand what causes blood cells to transform into acute myeloid leukaemia, diagnosed in 2,000 people in the UK every year.
He works closely with leading haematologist Dr David Bowen, also at University of Dundee, who has a special interest in myelodysplasia, a blood disorder diagnosed in 3,250 in Britain every year. In some people it can transform into AML.
Exposure to cancer-causing agents from a variety of sources - from naturally occurring radiation to manmade chemicals - can be powerful enough to disrupt DNA and the normal blood creating process to cause leukaemia and myelodysplasia.
But the process is likely to be modified by a person's unique genetic make-up - making some people more (or less) susceptible to these diseases than others.
"Our bodies vary in their ability to spot damaged DNA and to patch it up. It may be that some people inherit a poorer ability to do this than others, putting them at extra risk. That's one of the things we are investigating," said Professor Wright.
He is particularly interested in the way in which radiation damages DNA. It may help with better treatment or prevention of radiation induced leukaemia, but it is also a useful model for studying the damage caused by other carcinogens that also act by damaging DNA.
"Our work will help unravel the complex way in which gene damage impacts on the working life of blood cells," explained Professor Wright.
"Not only might that open up new opportunities for treating leukaemia by allowing us to target these unique communication pathways, but it will help us to understand how other carcinogens work and what might be done to reduce their risk."
While radiation can have a direct impact on DNA Professor Wright believes it provides an indirect route to leukaemia too.
"We think there is a bystander - or knock on - effect of radiation damage that may cause DNA damage to occur sometime after the initial exposure. If this is the case - and the new funding will help us explore this exciting area of chromosomal instability - then it suggests a much more complicated route to disease in some cases than we have so far anticipated."
Dr David Grant, Leukaemia Research Fund Scientific Director, said this £1 million boost to research underlined Dundee's importance in the pioneering world of medical research.
"Dundee is a cornerstone of an emerging Golden Triangle of research in Scotland that also includes Glasgow and Edinburgh," he said.
"The quality of research undertaken in the city is world-leading and will have a major impact on the lives of people with leukaemia and the related diseases."
LRF research projects at the University of Dundee and Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee include:
 | Professor Eric Wright and Dr David Bowen - investigating blood cell development in leukaemia and myelodysplasia |
| Dr David Bowen |
| Dr Duncan Gowans and Professor Wright - investigating how benzene causes leukaemia |
| Dr Dorothy Crouch - how healthy cells become cancer cells |
| Dr David Brighty - investigating the role of human T cell leukaemia virus (HTLV-1) in aggressive adult T-cell leukaemia lymphoma. |
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