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Many types of blood cancer occur because small proteins called transcription factors don’t behave as they should. Dr Feldhahn and his team plan to develop new scientific technology, which could lead to a new drug treatment for a type of blood cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

Dr Feldhahn in the stood in the lab with two members of his lab team, wearing white lab coats.

Dr Niklas Feldhahn and team in the lab

Project information

Lead researcher

Dr Niklas Feldhahn, Imperial College London

Research team
  • A team at Imperial College London
Related conditions
  • Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL)
Research type
  • Non-clinical
Region
  • London
Grant awarded
  • Innovative Pilot Grant
Status
Ongoing
Funding award date
June 2025
Amount awarded

£29,996.63

The challenge

Many types of blood cancer, like leukaemia, lymphoma, and myeloma often develop because small proteins called transcription factors don’t behave as they should.

These transcription factors play an important role in helping blood cancer cells to grow and survive.

Researchers have found that if they can reduce the number of transcription factors that the cancers cells often die. However, current drug treatments are rarely able to target these transcription factors to treat disease.

The project

In this pilot project, Dr Feldhahn and his team plan to use a new scientific technology to create a ‘glue’ that sticks to the transcription factors and transports them to a molecule that can break them down into smaller parts that can be reused to build other small proteins.

They plan to test this new technology on a specific transcription factor called ‘ETV5’ which is responsible for causing ALL, a type of leukaemia that is extremely challenging to treat.

The future

If successful, researchers hope this work could help in the development of a new drug to treat the disease in the future. They also hope this could help provide the basis for the development of new drug treatments produced in a similar way that could be used to treat many types of blood cancer.

Help us beat blood cancer by funding a research project

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  • £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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