Leukaemia research to get £3.1m funding

Researchers have been awarded £3.1 million for a pioneering study to help find new treatments for a rare form of blood cancer.

Scientists at Glasgow University’s Institute of Cancer Sciences will carry out laboratory experiments in tandem with a clinical trial to monitor how cancer cells in patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) respond to new experimental drugs.

They hope data from their experiments will help determine which drug will be most effective for individual patients.

CML is a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. Normally, blood cells are produced in the bone marrow, however CML occurs when blood stem cells produce abnormal white blood cells that grow out of control.

It can be treated with drugs that tackle the cancerous white blood cells but they do not kill the CML stem cells and in some patients the cancer can become resistant to treatment.

Professor Mhairi Copland, director of the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre and clinical lead for the study, said: “Around a quarter of CML patients develop resistance to the standard treatment.

“For some patients we can try a different drug or a bone marrow transplant. However, CML tends to be a disease of older people for whom a bone marrow transplant isn’t an option.

“Our hope is that this study will help more patients with difficult-to-treat CML survive, and give them more time with their families with better quality of life.”

About 50 people are diagnosed with CML in Scotland each year and about 20 in Scotland die from the disease annually.

The study will continue the work of cancer specialist and founding director of Glasgow’s Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre, Professor Tessa Holyoake, who died of breast cancer in August 2017.

STV entertainment reporter Laura Boyd, who was diagnosed with CML eight years ago, welcomed news of the study.

Ms Boyd, from Glasgow, commented: “The future is uncertain and that’s why it comes as such a relief to know this funding will enable scientists to carry forward their groundbreaking work.”