Biomarkers for lymphoblastic leukaemia

Biola M. Javierre

Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, Badalona, Spain

Adult acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is a type of leukaemia that affects 15 people per million population each year in developed countries, according to data from IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This type of tumour, which accounts for 10 % of all leukaemias diagnosed worldwide, poses a huge challenge, as one in two patients will develop the disease again and, when this happens, 90 % of them die.

The causes of relapse, that is, the recurrence of the disease after treatment, are still not fully understood. Recent studies suggest that certain mutations that do not directly affect genes and the tumour microenvironment may play an important role in the persistence of the disease. Being able to test whether these factors are indeed key to relapse would make it possible to better predict the future of patients and design new strategies to treat them.

This project aims to decipher the molecular and cellular basis of relapse in this type of leukaemia. To this end, the different types of cells in the tumour microenvironment will be characterised and the cancer cell populations of the different stages will be compared: those present at the time of diagnosis, those present during remission in patients who overcome leukaemia and those present during relapse in patients in whom the disease reappears. The goal is to identify biomarkers to predict which patients are at risk of relapse and to find new targets to treat the tumour and prevent relapse and mortality.

• Alfonso Valencia, Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), Spain

Deciphering relapse in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

€999,999.92