QIMR Berghofer scientists‘ accidental blood cancer discovery could save countless lives

An accidental discovery by a Queensland-led international team of scientists could lead to a new weapon to kill blood cancer cells “and an instruction manual that explains how the weapon works”.

The accidental discovery of a new weapon against blood cancer could save countless lives, with QIMR Berghofer scientists describing it as a “eureka moment”.

The Queensland-led international team stumbled on the breakthrough while investigating why a new class of drug was effective in killing leukaemia cells.

To their surprise, they found the imetelstat drug induced a type of cell death known as ferroptosis – which is distinct from more established cell deaths such as apoptosis and necrosis.

They were also able to show the intricate biological process that triggers ferroptosis, paving the way for fresh approaches to fighting cancers.

Senior author, QIMR Berghofer’s Steven Lane, described the discovery as “very exciting”.

“It essentially means we potentially have a new weapon to kill blood cancer cells and an instruction manual that explains how the weapon works,” Professor Lane said.

QIMR Berghofer’s Steven Lane said researchers potentially had “a new weapon to kill blood cancer cells and an instruction manual that explains how the weapon works”.

He said traditional chemotherapies sometimes stopped working and some patients didn’t respond to them at all, so the findings could particularly help patients “who have run out of options”.

Lead author Claudia Bruedigam said the research involved years of work by an international team of more than 20 scientists.

“We were interested in the drug imetelstat because it targets telomeres, which are DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes,” Dr Bruedigam said.

“We used cutting-edge functional genetics experiments to basically knock out every single gene of the human genome in the patient samples to try to understand why it was effective against leukaemia.

“It really was a eureka moment when we found there was this other separate process taking place as well, the cell-death pathway ferroptosis.”

QIMR Clive Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane. Picture: AAP Image

The findings, published in the journal Nature Cancer, have sparked a world-first phase II clinical trial of the drug in patients with myelodysplasia and acute myeloid leukaemia.

It is being done at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and Royal Adelaide Hospital, and sites in Germany and France, and the team is looking to recruit another 25 patients.

According to the Leukaemia Foundation, the incidence of blood cancer has risen by 47 per cent in the past decade.

In Australia, about 135,000 people are living with a blood cancer or blood disorder, with that figure tipped to exceed 275,000 by 2035.

The QIMR Berghofer team said its latest research could also be significant in treatment for other forms of cancer.