The Leukaemia Foundation has today announced a new national multi-million dollar research strategy to beat blood cancers like leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

This comes as the Leukaemia Foundation resumes its research funding program after undergoing national consolidation and restructure over the past two years.

As part of this new research strategy, the Leukaemia Foundation will now start funding high-impact blood cancer research that focuses on innovation in diagnosis and treatments and improving the quality of life across the blood cancer spectrum.

The Leukaemia Foundation’s key research priorities include:

• Understanding the biology of blood cancers.
• Precision medicine – investing in new, tailor-made therapies to treat each patient’s cancer.
• New diagnostics.
• Novel (new) therapies.
• Psychosocial aspects of cancer.
• Innovative clinical trials and/or incorporation of real world data.
• Prevention research including investigating risk factors and possible causes of blood cancers.

The Leukaemia Foundation’s new national research program will forge strong partnerships with leading agencies, including the Haematology Society of Australia & New Zealand (HSANZ), Cancer Australia and the Centre for Blood Transplant and Cell Therapy (CBTCT), and new Centre of Research Excellence
(CRE), to help realise its new blood cancer research goals.

The first project identified under the new program will be a $1 million investment over five years (2018-2022) to the (CBTCT), announced today.

The Leukaemia Foundation will be a major partner and the only non-government organisation to support this CBTCT research project, which aims to meet the urgent need for new treatment approaches to better prevent and treat deadly graft versus host disease (GVHD).

The announcement comes as the Leukaemia Foundation launches the annual Light the Night campaign, with proceeds this year dedicated to its new national research program.

Graft versus host disease

In Australia, GVHD affects an alarming 50 to 70 per cent of stem cell transplant (SCT) recipients, both young and old. It occurs when donated cells (the graft) see your body cells (the host) as foreign, and attack them. Chronic GVHD severely compromises a person’s quality of life, causing severe abdominal pain, mouth ulcers, muscle or joint pain and extreme damage to vital organs such as lungs and liver.

GVHD is a killer. It is one of the most significant contributors to transplant related deaths and 20% of SCT recipients develop severe acute GVHD that does not respond to conventional treatment, resulting in more than half of those people dying.

CBTCT’s Principle Investigator, Professor David Gottlieb said the funding would help support research into a better outcome for all Australians living with GVHD.

“The reality is that most patients say they would rather not live than spend the rest of their lives with this awful disease,” Prof Gottlieb said. “This investment will contribute to generating new knowledge in the fields of transplant immunology and cell therapy and improve patient outcomes nationally.”

Leukaemia Foundation’s CEO Bill Petch said this investment towards better outcomes for Australians living with GVHD was the first in a line of funding research and partnerships to be announced this year. 

“This funding is part of the Leukaemia Foundation’s new, high impact, research strategy and is committed to supporting medical research that will drive rapid advancements in treatments,” Mr Petch said.

“As Australia’s leading blood cancer organisation, the Leukaemia Foundation cannot continue to allow our loved ones to suffer and die from GVHD. We’re taking this major step to search for better prevention and treatment in hopes for a future that is free from blood cancer,” he said. 

About the CBTCT

The CBTCT aims to improve the prevention and treatment of GVHD by:

• Changing the clinical practice for treating transplant recipients who have GVHD.
• Discovering biomarkers with diagnostic, prognostic and predictive power, to prevent GVHD.
• Using novel agents, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells therapy, immunomodulatory and immunotherapy agents and genetically modified T-cells, to reduce blood cancer relapse and improve patients’ survival.

“The potential from this research has been very promising in theory, and we are optimistic that we can replicate them into reality in the coming years,” Prof David Gottlieb said.

To do so, the CBTCT project will include prevention studies that will investigate new therapies for GVHD and relapse. The studies will comprise of a pilot study, a Phase I, a Phase I/II, and two Phase III randomised trials. There also are treatment studies with three early Phase I, a Phase I/II, and a Phase III trial.

The Leukaemia Foundation will also provide some transport and accommodation funding for eligible patients to ensure they have equitable access to this research and trials.

This research and clinical trials will be conducted at the BMT/SCT units in Brisbane (Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital), Sydney (Westmead Hospital) and Melbourne (Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Alfred Hospital), with involvement from SCT units in Adelaide and Perth.

The CBTCT project is led by world leaders in transplant research. Chief Australian Investigators include Professor David Gottlieb, Professor Geoff Hill, Dr Siok Tey, Professor David Ritchie, and Associate Professor David Curtis. International Chief Investigators on the team are Professor Bruce Blazar (University of Minnesota, US) and Professor James Ferrara (Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, US).

The CBTCT’s scientific partners are Queensland Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne and Monash University in Australia, and the international centres are the University of Minnesota and Icahn Centre School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, both in the US.

The Leukaemia Foundation’s commitment 

The CBTCT project received an initial $2.5 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research

Council (NH&MRC). The Leukaemia Foundation will contribute $1 million over the next five years (2018 to 2022).

The Leukaemia Foundation’s CBTCT grant will help generate new knowledge in the fields of transplant immunology and cell therapy that translate to improved patient outcomes within five years. It will also help to improve transplant outcomes nationally and internationally by transferring new preclinical paradigms that address the management of GVHD into clinical practice.

Additionally, researchers will be able to introduce gene-modified suicide gene and CAR T-cells products across Australia. The funds will also develop the careers of basic researchers, clinicians and allied health practitioners by generating an Australia-wide clinical and scientific interdisciplinary framework that provides training and education programs.

It will provide national and international networks that ensure improved collaboration and provides the infrastructure for new multi-disciplinary approaches spanning haematology, immunology, microbiology and genomics.

The grant will also aid researchers in gaining insights into research advances, novel treatments, quality of life and self-care opportunities via an Australian hub for patients, consumer advocates and cancer organisations to engage with basic researchers, clinicians and allied health practitioners.

Over the next five years, the funding will help identify opportunities to develop novel diagnostics and therapies based on preclinical and biomarker discoveries.