Research Focus
The Gordon and Jessie Gilmour Leukaemia Research Laboratory is researching myeloid blood cancers that include acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) as part of its translational leukaemia research work.
These very aggressive and rapidly fatal blood cancers are among the most common types of cancer affecting Australians. The laboratory’s efforts concentrate on understanding how leukaemia stem cells in AML and MPN are able to regenerate leukaemia (or cause relapse in patients), even after cytotoxic chemotherapy.
Research has focused on generating robust models of leukaemia and dissecting the pathways of self-renewal in leukaemia stem cells and normal blood stem cells.
The group aims to tailor treatments for individual patients, identify new drug pathways and explore repurposing existing drugs to target resistant leukaemia types.
Gallery
Research Projects
Current Research Projects
MoST-LLy Clinical trial
Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) – targeting disease-initiating stem cell populations through targeted inhibitors of Jak2 signaling or through inhibition of self-renewal pathways within stem cell populations
Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) – examining the effect of inhibitors used alone, or in combination with chemotherapy on the preferential dependency of AML stem cells (compared to normal bone marrow) on pathways regulating DNA damage response and chromosomal stability
Research Team
Dr Paniz Tavakoli
Dr Jasmin Straube
Dr Victoria Ling
Dr Julian Grabek
Funding
- Leukaemia Foundation Strategic Ecosystem Grant: Myelodysplasia
- MPN research foundation (USA): Interferon challenge grant
- Cancer Australia, Priority Driven Research Funding Scheme: Dnmt3a loss contributes to disease progression in myeloproliferative neoplasm
- NHMRC Project Grant: targeting leukaemia stem cells through inhibition of telomerase
- NHMRC project Grant: the evolution of acute myeloid leukaemia through the in situ transformation of haematopoietic stem cells
- NHMRC Investigator grant
- CSL Centenary Fellowship
- Gordon and Jessie Gilmour Trust – charitable donation
- Herron Family – charitable donation
Publications
Further information
Dr Claudia Bruedigam
Therese Vu
Yashaswini Janardhanan
Amy Porter
Will Gatehouse
Noah Hayes
Axia Song
Joanne Sutton
Emma Dishington
Matthew Barker
Dr Ranran Zhang
Michael Shakhovskoy
- Associate Professor Ann Mullally, Harvard Medical School
- Professor Ben Ebert, Harvard Medical School
- Professor David Williams, Harvard Medical School
- Professor Stefan Froehling, National Center for Tumour Diseases Heidelberg
- Professor Claudia Scholl, National Center for Tumour Diseases Heidelberg
- Associate Professor Michael Milsom, German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ)
- Professor Florian Heidel, Jena University Hospital
- Professor Geoff Hill, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Centre
- Professor Lars Bullinger, Charité University Medicine
- Associate Professor Stephen Sykes, Fox Chase Cancer Center
- Professor Richard D’Andrea, University South Australia
- Professor Mark Dawson, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
- Associate Professor Carl Walkley, St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research
- Associate Professor Louise Purton, St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research
- Professor Andrew Perkins, Alfred Hospital, Monash Medical School