Molecular medicine can help childhood leukaemia patients

A study funded by the Children's Leukaemia Research Project (CLRP) involving a collaboration between St James's Hospital, Trinity College Dublin and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin has yielded exciting results in relation to the use of molecular biology to aid in patient management for children with leukaemia.  These results were presented recently at the Haematology Association of Ireland (HAI) meeting in Belfast by Miss Jackie Ryan, a PhD student in the lab of Professor Mark Lawler (St James's Hospital and TCD). The talk entitled  "Minimal residual disease (MRD) in the evaluation of early response to treatment in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia", received the top award at the meeting, awarded by  Technopharm. As part of the prize, the winner attended the prestigious American Society of Haematology meeting in the US in December.

The research presented is the culmination of a 3 year project involving a significant collaboration between St James's Hospital, Trinity College Dublin and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, all of whom are members of the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre (DMMC), a collaborative partnership between Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and their respective teaching hospitals. It emphasises how collaborative work between hospitals and research centres in Dublin can lead to advances in the study of childhood leukemia. This translational research project highlights how precise molecular evaluation of response to treatment in children receiving chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) can allow the potential to stratify patients for good or bad prognosis.  The project emphasises  the potential for collaboration between scientists, clinicians and patients and would not have been possible without the crucial support of the Childrens Leukemia Research Project. It also highlights how  "added value" research can be leveraged by the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre.

The project is directed by Prof Mark Lawler (Institute of Molecular Medicine St James's Hospital and TCD) and  researchers involved in the study include Dr Paul Browne (St James's Hospital and TCD), Professor Owen Smith (Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children Crumlin),  Professor Shaun McCann (St James's Hospital and TCD), and Dr Aengus O Marcaigh (Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin) and the work is an important step forward in relation to the molecular understanding of childhood leukaemia and its response to therapy