Search
The WA Kids Cancer Centre has a suite of world-leading research projects to unlock new treatments for childhood cancers.
KMT2A-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) represents a high risk subtype of childhood ALL. Historical treatment strategies have comprised of intensification with conventional chemotherapy. However, outcomes have remained consistently poor compared to the advances that have been seen for other ALL subtypes, particularly for infants diagnosed before their first birthday
Despite significant advances, outcomes for children with Down syndrome (DS, trisomy 21) who develop acute lymphoblastic leukemia remain poor. Reports of large DS-ALL cohorts have shown that children with DS have inferior event-free survival and overall survival compared to children without DS.
Early, rapid, and accurate diagnostic tests play critical roles not only in the identification/management of individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2, but also in fast and effective public health surveillance, containment, and response. Our aim has been to develop a fast and robust fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) detection method for detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNAs by using an HEK 293 T cell culture model.
There are few options for patients with relapse/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, thus this is a major area of unmet medical need. Here, we reveal that inclusion of a poison exon in RBM39, which could be induced both by CDK9 or CDK9 independent CMGC (cyclin-dependent kinases, mitogen-activated protein kinases, glycogen synthase kinases, CDC-like kinases) kinase inhibition, is recognized by the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway for degradation.
An in-depth investigation of gene regulation and cell populations at sites of fetal blood-cell production provides clues as to why children with Down’s syndrome are predisposed to developing leukaemia.
T cells engineered to express chimeric-antigen receptors (CAR-T cells) can effectively control relapsed and refractory haematological malignancies in the clinic. However, the successes of CAR-T cell therapy have not been recapitulated in solid tumours due to a range of barriers such as immunosuppression, poor infiltration, and tumour heterogeneity.
Pineal parenchymal tumors are rare neoplasms for which evidence-based treatment recommendations are lacking. These tumors vary in biology, clinical characteristics, and prognosis, requiring treatment that ranges from surgical resection alone to intensive multimodal antineoplastic therapy.
Our international team highlights issues with efficacy reports in several studies on DMG with the new drug ONC201.
With immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) having reshaped the treatment of many cancers, the next frontier is to identify and develop novel combination therapies to improve efficacy. Previously, we and others identified beneficial immunological effects of the vitamin A derivative tretinoin on anti-tumour immunity.