Grant: Project Grant

The same type of cancer in one patient can differ significantly from that in another patient, a phenomenon referred to as disease "heterogeneity". This poses a challenge when deciding on a therapy, as it's not a one-size-fits all approach for a given cancer. Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) stands out as one of the most heterogeneous types of cancer in terms of patient-to-patient responses that are difficult to predict and map before treatment starts. AML is a blood cancer that causes a toxic build-up of non-functional, immature blood cells. These leukemic cells are 'blocked' in their ability to become specialized functional cells, such as red blood cells for transporting oxygen, and immune cells for fighting infection. Despite our ability to treat AML and achieve near undetectable levels of rare cancer cells, a state called "remission", AML still returns. Unfortunately, this "relapse" is very common and fatal in patients. This is unacceptable. Our team of clinical and basic researcher scientists aims to address the challenges in treating AML by studying the patient cells as well as their response to treatment on a patient-by-patient basis. We will focus on Leukemic Stem/Progenitor Cells (LSPCs) that are the rare cells believed to allow relapse. Our recent findings suggest LSPCs are all unique and each unique behavior makes them difficult to target consistently across patients so many therapies don't work. We suggest that defining how LSPCs response differs between patients and combining this information with proteins, that these proteins will act as distinct tags for each LSPC behavior. Using this data, we will be able to group and treat patients using new therapies that effectively kill their specific LSPCs to make sure the leukemia never returns. Our first step is to create a map of AML disease between tags and LSPC behaviour between patients and is the basis of our requested support here to CIHR, allowing us to create new precision therapies for AML patients.