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A boost for blood cancer research

4 February 2025

A bequest left by one of the patients of Asim Khwaja, Emeritus Professor of Haematology and Consultant Haematologist, is driving cutting-edge blood cancer research that could bring about more effective treatments for patients in the future.

A group of UCL cancer academics together in the lab

To develop much-needed new treatments for blood cancer patients, we need a better understanding of how these cancers form. To do so, it is critical to have a large, curated collection of blood and bone marrow samples, known as a biobank, to enable researchers to more closely interrogate these diseases.

Thanks to a kind gift left in the will of one Professor Khwaja’s patients, the UCL Leukaemia Research team (Dr Beth Payne, Professor Marc Mansour and Dr Rob Sellar) have been able to develop their blood cancer biobank by collecting and storing more patient samples.

“This gift has given a real boost to the team,” said Professor Khwaja. “We are so grateful for the research avenues it will help unlock.”

The recently expanded biobank is already benefitting a number of the team’s current studies, including work being led by Dr Sellar to discover new treatments for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer.

As part of this work, Dr Sellar is using the biobank to study sometimes rare, high-risk subtypes of AML and the effectiveness of different drugs in eliminating GSPT1, a protein which may enable cancer cells to survive.

The results of Dr Sellar’s studies will be used to guide early phase clinical trials of drugs that can degrade this harmful protein and therefore combat various forms of AML. The ultimate hope is that this work will bring new treatments to patients with particularly aggressive AML, for whom effective therapies are currently limited and their benefits short-lived.

This is just one of the UCL Leukaemia Research team’s current projects being strengthened as a result of this donor’s legacy. Many more of their cutting-edge studies will benefit in the years to come.

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