Improving outcomes for patients with aggressive blood cancers

• PhD
• Honours

Outcomes for patients with blood cancer have improved in recent years. However there are still a subset of blood cancers that are aggressive and the patients have poor survival outcomes. Mutations in the tumour suppressor p53 are frequently detected in human cancers and are a poor prognostic factor. These mutations impair the response of malignant cells to anti-cancer agents that cause DNA damage and to other drugs.

This research aims to understand how p53 mutations contribute to the initiation and sustained growth of lymphomas and other tumours and their response to cancer therapy. The research utilises sophisticated pre-clinical models of cancer and involves the use of techniques including FACS, Western blotting, CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, RNA-Seq analysis.

The Kelly lab work within the Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division at WEHI. The group consists of 2 senior postdoctoral research fellows, 2 research assistants and 3 PhD students. The Kelly lab aim to improve outcomes for patients with hard-to-treat blood cancers by using sophisticated pre-clinical models, patient samples and CRISPR approaches to understand the mechanisms of therapy resistance.

With this knowledge the team aim to find new therapeutic approaches to overcome drug resistance and improve the survival of patients. Recent publications include Diepstraten, Cancer Cell 2024; Zang, Cancer Discovery 2024; Deng, Nature Comms 2022).