NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has awarded a $6.3 million grant for research at the University of Cambridge that will use genome-wide analysis to study drug responses used for blood cancer treatment, LLS said Monday.
The grant, which provides $1.25 million per year for five years, was funded under the LLS Marshall A. Lichtman Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) grant program.
The SCOR program, which has awarded more than $235 million since it started in 2000, seeks to bring together interdisciplinary research teams to collaborate on discovering new ways to treat patients with leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.
The SCOR award to University of Cambridge Professor Anthony Green will use genome-wide analysis to study how patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN's) respond to drug therapy.
Previous research has shown that defects in the JAK2 gene are present in most patients with MPNs, which affect roughly 200,000 people in the US. Such molecular discoveries could lead the way for researchers to develop new ways to diagnose and treat these patients.