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Some babies develop leukaemias as a result of changes that happen before birth. Professor Katrin Ottersbach wants to understand more about these changes and why some babies see their cancer return despite treatment.

Project information

Lead researcher

Professor Katrin Ottersbach, University of Edinburgh

Research team
  • A team at University of Edinburgh
Related conditions
  • Childhood leukaemias
  • Leukaemia
Research type
  • Non-clinical
Region
  • Scotland
Grant awarded
  • Project Grant
Status
Completed
Funding award date
February 2020
Amount awarded

£237,000

Project completion date
November 2023

The challenge

Thanks to research, we have good treatments available for older children with leukaemia.

However, these don’t work very well for babies under a year old and often cause severe side effects and long-term health issues.

In order to create better treatments for babies, it is important to gain a better understanding of how their leukaemia develops.

The project

Certain leukaemias, called mixed lineage leukaemias (MLLs), can undergo changes which make them harder to treat.

Professor Katrin Ottersbach and her team are looking at two genetic changes that occur before birth that are thought to lead to MLL.

They are investigating the role that each of these errors has in the development of the disease and in addition to this, they will try and understand why some leukaemias escape treatment, causing some babies cancers to return.

The future

Improving our understanding of the factors driving this disease in babies and why some babies see their cancer return, will help lay the groundwork to create better and kinder treatments in the future.

Help us beat blood cancer by funding a research project

  • Could help eight people newly diagnosed with blood cancer understand their condition.
  • Could help researchers study blood cancer cells to develop new treatments and improve early diagnosis.
  • Could help scientists identify genetic patterns in tumour samples to better understand how genes contribute to the development of blood cancer.
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