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Currently funded causes projects

We are funding a diverse range of projects looking at different aspects of childhood cancer causation and development – including environmental risk factors as well as the underlying biology of different types of childhood cancer.

The projects are listed below, with the most recently funded first. Please click on the links for more information about the individual projects.

Professor Tessa Holyoake, University of Glasgow

Isabelle Gore 27 September 2011
We have provided funding to support a new senior research post at the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre in Glasgow.

Amount of grant: £323,603

Date of award: May 2011
 

Background

We helped to fund the cost of building and equipping the new Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre in Glasgow, which opened in 2008.

The new Centre forms part of Glasgow’s Institute of Cancer Sciences (ICS), providing a highly interactive research environment where basic scientists and clinical academics benefit from close interactions with the Beatson I... Read More

Dr Mike Murphy & Dr Gerald Draper, University of Oxford

Larry McCarthy 01 January 2011
Studies of retinoblastoma

Amount of grant: £168,039

Date of award: January 2011


Dr Mike Murphy & Dr Gerald Draper
Childhood Cancer Research Group, Oxford

Retinoblastoma is a cancer that affects the lining of the eye (the retina). It is very rare, affecting around 40 children a year in Britain. Almost all patients with retinoblastoma can now be successfully treated, but unfortunately many children with retinoblastoma have a greatly increased risk of developing subsequent cancers.

The research team wants to better understand the reasons f... Read More

Professor Tariq Enver, UCL Cancer Institute, London

Liz Daley 01 September 2010

The biology of normal and leukaemic stem and progenitor cells

Amount of grant: £330,000

Date of award: September 2010

Professor Tariq Enver, University College London Cancer Institute

Professor Enver is an international leader in the field of leukaemic stem cells.

His recent breakthrough research has identified the cells in which the most common form of childhood leukaemia first arises.

Stem cells and blood production

Our bone marrow produces millions of blood cells every day.

Three types of cell are produced – red blood cells, wh... Read More

Dr Paresh Vyas and Professor Irene Roberts

John Smithies 01 December 2009
Down's syndrome associated pre-leukaemia and leukaemia

Amount of grant: £922,319

Date of award: December 2009

Dr Paresh Vyas, Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine, Oxford and Professor Irene Roberts, Imperial College London

Children with Down's syndrome (DS) have a greatly increased risk of developing acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

This project, which we are funding in collaboration with the Leukaemia Research Fund, is investigating the genetic changes which underlie this devastating association.

The defining feature of DS is three... Read More

Dr Malcolm Taylor, University of Manchester

John Smithies 01 December 2009
Systematic analysis of MHC-restricted antigen-specific T cell responses in children with leukaemia using T cell microarrays – a pilot validation study

Amount of grant: £314,697
Date of award: December 2009

Although childhood leukaemia is now very successfully treated – and in most cases cured – with chemotherapy, the ultimate goal is to prevent the disease altogether.

One possible approach to prevention builds on growing evidence of the role of the immune system in the development of leukaemia, by exploiting the body’s own immune defences to... Read More
Related Topics manchester, Dr Malcolm Taylor

Dr Joachim Schüz, Institute of Cancer Epidemiology

John Smithies 01 December 2008
Proximity to power lines and childhood leukaemia in Denmark

Amount of grant: £83,135

Date of award: December 2008

Dr Joachim Schüz, Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Denmark

The Draper Report*, published in 2005, showed a significantly increased risk of leukaemia in children in England and Wales living within 600 metres of a high voltage overhead power line.
 
This result surprised many, not least because of the distance to which the increased risk extended - a distance beyond that at which there are elevated magnetic fields – meaning that ... Read More
Related Topics Dr Joachim Schüz

Dr Joshua Schiffman, University of Utah

John Smithies 01 December 2008
Identifying and characterising copy number variation (CNV) as a risk factor for childhood leukaemia

Amount of grant: £183,069

Date of award: December 2008

Copy number variation (CNV) is a type of genetic variation. Over 4,000 regions of copy number variations have been identified in the ‘normal’ human genome.

CNV regions contain stretches of duplicated or deleted DNA in healthy individuals and can be found throughout the entire genome.

Although a very recent discovery, CNVs already have been associated with susceptibility to complex diseas... Read More
Related Topics Dr Joshua Schiffman

Dr Lyndal Kearney, Institute of Cancer Research, London

John Smithies 01 December 2008
Defining the role of JAK2 mutations in the natural history and molecular pathogenesis of ‘excess risk’ ALL in children with Down's syndrome

Amount of grant: £128,083
Date of award: December 2008

Children with Down's syndrome (DS), the genetic hallmark of which is an extra copy of chromosome 21, have a greatly increased risk of developing acute leukaemia in the first few years of life.

The leukaemias in DS children are of two distinct kinds. Approximately one half are of a variety that is normally extremely rare - acute megakaryoblastic leuka... Read More

Professor Shai Izraeli, Sheba Medical Center, Israel

John Smithies 01 December 2008
Haematopoietic transcription factors and childhood leukaemia – Down's syndrome as model

Amount of grant: £198,432

Date of award: December 2008

Children with Down's syndrome (DS) are more likely than other children to develop leukaemia.

As many as one in ten children with DS are born with a pre-leukaemic condition called transient myeloproliferative disorder (TMD); in about one fifth of cases this condition progresses into full-blown leukaemia.

DS is caused by a genetic mutation which produces an extra copy of chromosome 21. Recent studies ... Read More
Related Topics Professor Shai Izraeli, Israel

Dr Richard Feltbower, University of Leeds

John Smithies 01 December 2008
Leukaemia and other cancers in teenagers and young adults in England: an aetiological analysis applying new statistical approaches

Amount of grant: £120,351

Date of award: December 2008

Clinically, leukaemia in older individuals behaves differently from the straightforward common form of childhood ALL.

It is possible that leukaemia in the teenage and young adult (TYA) age group comprises a spectrum of diseases which include late-presenting childhood type diseases and early-presenting adult type diseases.

The distribution of disease in this... Read More
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