Breakthrough offers hope for blood cancer patients
Fewer than one in four people are still alive five years after being diagnosed with this type of blood cancer. Now a breakthrough by Queensland researchers offers new hope for sufferers.
QLD News
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A BREAKTHROUGH by Queensland researchers offers new hope for sufferers of a highly deadly blood cancer.
QIMR Berghofer has identified how an early genetic change in blood and bone marrow cells paves the way for the development of some blood cancers.
The discovery provides a new target for treatment of the blood cancers myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).
MDS is often a precursor cancer to AML, a highly aggressive form of leukaemia. Fewer than one in four people are still alive five years after being diagnosed with AML, Cancer Australia says.
The research findings will be published today in the prestigious international journal Nature Communications.
Lead researcher and the head of QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute’s Cancer Program, Steven Lane, said his team engineered the transcription factor Cdx2 into normal mouse blood cells, resulting in the development of MDS and AML. Cdx2 is a gene.
“We found that Cdx2 hijacks and corrupts how other genes behave in blood and bone marrow cells,” he said. “It sows the seeds of vulnerability which then allows the development of other genetic mutations that lead to cancer.”
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