August 24, 2000
Dana-Farber To Establish New Center For Leukemia Research
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society provides $7.5 million for Myeloid Leukemia Research
A Specialized Center of Research in Myeloid Leukemia has been established at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and three affiliates as the result of a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It is one of only three such "SCOR" grants bestowed by the organization this year - the largest single awards for research in the Society's history.
The center, led by James Griffin, M.D., of Dana-Farber's Department of Adult Oncology, is bringing a new, collaborative approach to the study and treatment of myeloid leukemia, which affects the blood-making cells of the bone marrow. Ten researchers at Dana-Farber, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Center for Blood Research at Harvard Medical School will attempt to identify the genes that cause leukemia and use those discoveries to develop more effective, targeted treatments for the disease.
"Although we've learned a great deal about the genetic events that lead up to myeloid leukemia, it remains one of the most difficult cancers to treat," Griffin remarks. More than 15,000 Americans develop the disease every year, and more than half die from it within a few years.
"The new center operates on the idea that if we bring together scientists who take different approaches to leukemia research, and if we explore the basic genetic causes of the disease, we can generate some creative approaches to treating it," Griffin says.
The center will encompass five projects - four that focus on the genes involved in leukemia and one that seeks to translate the results of the other four into new therapies, including vaccines.
Among the four laboratory-based projects are one that will examine how key cancer genes interact and are activated, one that will map the genes that cause myeloid leukemias using cDNA "chip" arrays, and one that will probe how conventional chemotherapy kills leukemia cells. The fifth project may involve clinical trials of new therapies derived from this research.
The funds from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will support several "core" research facilities to be shared by members of the center. Among these will be a communications core that will help center members exchange ideas and information, and a biostatistics core that will help design lab experiments and clinical trials.
By supporting the work of a multidisciplinary team of researchers, rather than that of a single scientist, the SCOR grant represents a new approach to funding by the Society. (This year's two other SCOR grants went to a group including the Oregon Health Sciences Center, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and another group of researchers at Cornell University and the Rockefeller Institute.)
"We're very pleased and fortunate to have been selected for this award," Griffin says. "It represents a terrific opportunity to increase our understanding of this type of cancer - an opportunity that will ultimately benefit patients."
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is among the leading cancer research and care facilities in the United States and is the only center in New England to be both a NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and NIH Center for AIDS Research.
