"I am an academic paediatric haematologist, which means that I am a medical doctor who cares for children with blood-disorders part time, and spend the rest of my time researching how to improve outcomes for patients. My research is done under the supervision of Professor Adam Mead who’s laboratory is based at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, the University of Oxford, and is supported by the Cancer Research Innovation in Science (CRIS) foundation and the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG).
I am studying rare and very aggressive childhood leukaemia’s called Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukaemia (JMML) and Paediatric Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS). JMML and MDS are amongst the most difficult haematological (blood) cancers to treat in children. These conditions do not respond to conventional chemotherapy which leaves Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) as the only curative treatment available. Unfortunately, despite this very toxic and radical treatment, disease comes back in more than 60% of patients. Once this occurs, treatment options are only limited to a second BMT, which unfortunately is often unsuccessful and children remain incurable from their disease.
In order to address this huge clinical unmet need, in 2015 I teamed up with Dr Anupama Rao, Professor Adam Mead and Professor Irene Roberts to establish a national multicentred study to collect samples from patients across the country. This has allowed very detailed characterisation of these conditions in an unprecedented manner. I study the leukaemia (cancer) cells from these patients and how these cancerous cells interact with other cells within the bone marrow. My work to date, has led to the identification of a ‘key’ subset of leukaemia cells which we think are important for driving the disease development. This subset of cells is called Leukaemia Stem Cells (LSC). We are now using bespoke state of art technologies to study how the LSC initiates cancer and then evades treatment. We hope that this work will lead to the development of novel, kinder and more disease-specific therapeutic targets which can be taken forward into clinical trials, and ultimately improve the outcomes of these patients.
Recent technological advances, have revolutionised the ability of cancer researchers to study cancer cells in great detail. A key priority for myself and all cancer researchers over the next 10 years is to work in the translation of these exciting findings, in order to design therapies that will improve not only the treatment outcomes for patients, but also to significantly reduce the toxicity induced by the current anti-cancer treatments."
Read more about Eleni on her Radcliffe Department of Medicine Profile.