Research Supervisor Connect
Developing effective stem cell-targeted therapies for cancer patients who are suffering from treatment resistance and disease relapse.
North Shore - Kolling Institute of Medical Research
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a difficult-to-treat blood cancer with a 5-year survival rate of only 27.4% in Australia. Despite intensive chemotherapy, the majority of patients with AML relapse and ultimately die from their disease. Clinical evidence has supported the important role of leukemia stem cells in the high relapse rate of AML patients. Leukemia stem cells reside in a mostly quiescent state and as such they are resistant to chemotherapy. These cells possess several unique features such as self-renewal and escaping from cell death. Targeted elimination of leukemia stem cells is now believed to be essential for AML patients to achieve a complete remission.
Our studies have identified key self-renewal pathways (Science 2010; Blood 2014; Leukemia 2016, 2019; Cancer Cell 2020) for stem cell formation and our exciting new findings of pathway inhibitors provide promising therapeutic opportunities to specifically target malignant stem cells. This project is designed to understand the mechanisms of action of pathway inhibitors in order to develop effective stem cell-targeted therapies that will benefit patients suffering from treatment resistance and disease relapse.
Technologies to be used: Single cell omics analysis (transcriptomics, proteomics and epigenomics), cell-based assays, in vitro drug response assays, molecular and cell biology, gene and protein expression, immunofluorescence, gene editing, chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq), flow cytometry, patient-derived xenograft mouse models, in vivo preclinical drug testing, stem cell technologies etc.
The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 3155