St Vincent's Institute

In 1960, a four-year old diagnosed with the most common type of childhood leukaemia had a less than 5% chance of survival. Today, about 85% of children with this type of leukemia live more than five years.

This amazing improvement in survival is one of the great success stories of medical research. Despite this, around 1,400 Australians die of leukaemia every year.

Leukaemia is a cancer of the blood cells. The different types of blood cells – red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets – are all derived from a primitive cell, called a stem cell. There is a complex series of developmental steps that must occur in order for a stem cell to differentiate into the different blood cells. If this process goes wrong, leukaemia can develop.

The Haematology and Leukaemia Unit, headed by Dr David Izon, is an integral part of the cancer research program at SVI. David and his group are using innovative methods in order to identify the genes that are responsible for the onset of human leukaemia.

David explains, “We focus on understanding what happens during normal development of blood cells, particularly the immune system’s T cells, in order to be able to identify the genes responsible for causing leukaemia. We do this by creating mouse models of leukaemia which mimic the human disease.”

Using their unique tools, the group has identified a specific gene that is responsible for leukaemia in mice. They are now investigating exactly how the gene affects blood cell development. They will use this information to help develop drugs to specifically target the signaling pathway used by the gene. These sorts of drugs would be more effective than current chemotherapy as they will be specifically targeted to the cause of the leukaemia itself.

The group work in close collaboration with SVI’s Stem Cell Regulation Unit and the department of Haematology at St Vincent’s Hospital. With such resources, there is great potential to further improve the survival of people diagnosed with leukaemia.