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Professor Claire Harrison wants to trial a new drug in people who have MPN who are unable to receive standard chemotherapy.

Project information

Lead researcher

Professor Claire Harrison, Guy's & St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust

Research team
Related conditions
  • Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN)
Research type
  • Clinical
Region
  • London
Grant awarded
Status
None
Funding award date
October 2025
Amount awarded

The challenge

Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are disorders that cause the bone marrow to produce too many blood cells.

It includes disorders such as:

  • polycythaemia vera (PV) - a disorder in which too many red blood cells are made causing the blood to become thicker than normal
  • essential thrombocythaemia (ET) - a disorder where there are too many platelets in the blood, which can cause the blood to clot, and
  • myelofibrosis (MF) - when the bone marrow is overactive, which causes scar tissue to develop (known as fibrosis).

Doctors usually treat MPNs with a chemotherapy called hydroxycarbamide, which works by stopping the cancer cells repairing DNA if it becomes damaged. However, some people can’t take hydroxycarbamide and sometimes this chemotherapy can stop working for people.

The project

Researchers think that a drug called ruxolitinib may help people with certain types of MPN.

Often these disorders are a result of processes going wrong inside cells. In particular researchers think a process called ‘JAK signalling’ goes wrong in people with MPN and ruxolitinib might be able to reverse this to stop cancer cells from growing and dividing.

Aims

  • See how well ruxolitinib works for people with PV and ET who can’t have the chemotherapy hydroxycarbamide
  • See how safe it is in people with PV and ET.

Help us beat blood cancer by funding a research project

  • £15 could help eight people newly diagnosed with blood cancer understand their condition.
  • £30 could help researchers study blood cancer cells to develop new treatments and improve early diagnosis.
  • £50 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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