University of Glasgow researchers have received a £12m boost to develop novel tools for predicting blood cancer and creating improved drug screen pathways to better treat the disease.

As part of a wider £36.5m investment from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRC), the funding will help advance two new projects led by the University of Glasgow.

Affecting around 700 Scots a year, more than 30,000 people worldwide die from leukaemia each year.

Glasgow researchers say the new funding will support investigations in how to predict harmful cell mutations that can lead to cancers via bone marrow models.

Professor Manuel Salmeron Sanchez, Chair of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow, explains that challenges in early diagnosis of leukaemia are a key barrier to effective treatment:

“As we live for longer, our blood stem cells change in order to allow them to continue to grow. These age-related changes can lead to the development of cancers such as leukaemia. Currently, we can’t predict if these age-related changes are a concern or not and so we miss the opportunity to advise on lifestyle changes and, indeed, to treat pre-disease or early disease.

“A major problem is that we rely on non-human rodent models to understand disease progression and to identify new treatments. By developing new materials that mimic the bone marrow, where leukaemia develops, and using human cells within these models, we can focus on these earliest stages of the disease to provide new understanding, new screening methods and new drugs.”

The EPSRC invests into healthcare technology to ‘transform the way patients are treated’ for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

Now, the first project to benefit from the £12m funding infusion, will work to develop engineered models of leukaemia in bone marrow to uncover how it develops and is affected by ageing, as well as smoking, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Charlotte Martin, Policy and Evidence Manager at Leukaemia Care – which has previously supported the research team – says the research brings innovative ways of exploring some of the biggest challenges facing patients with leukaemia:

“Diagnosis in particular is challenging thanks to symptoms of leukaemia being hard to spot.

“Aiding the public and doctors to spot leukaemia, in addition to clinical examination, may help us make some progress in this area. The engagement and involvement of patients and groups that represent them is vitally important to ensuring that research meets the needs of those affected by leukaemia. Leukaemia Care is looking forward to sharing those insights with the researchers here, as well as sharing progress on the work with our communities.”

The team combines expertise from across engineering, medical and life science disciplines and will also develop technologies to monitor and follow disease progression to improve the cancer and drug screening processes.

Predicting cell changes

The researchers hope these models will then be used to investigate how cells from other cancers, like breast and prostate, migrate to the bone marrow and lie dormant.

Cancer cells can sometimes lie dormant for years but will eventually reactivate and cause ‘devastating secondary cancers’ via metastasis which, the researchers explain, are almost always fatal.

Currently, not a lot is known what makes dormant cancer cells reawaken but the Glasgow team hopes that these ‘ambitious models’ of bone marrow will help develop materials and technologies needed to rapidly improve cancer therapies.

A second project will also examine very early changes in leukaemia at a cellular level, to develop a predictive engineered test for leukaemia which they hope will enable earlier detection of the cancer.

Other collaborators on the two projects include the University of Strathclyde and four universities in England.

Glasgow University’s Matt Dalby, Professor of Cell Engineering and Director of Innovation, Engagement and Enterprise, Molecular Biosciences, said:

“This funding from the EPSRC for these two separate projects is a fantastic opportunity as it allows us to bring together an amazing team from across the UK and to partner with doctors and industry to help us to focus on delivering technologies we need, and with charities such as Blood Cancer UK and Leukaemia Care to help us understand the requirements of the patient groups.”

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