Bramhall-based The Humane Research Trust has awarded a £450,000 Fellowship to support pioneering leukaemia research
Scientists will create a human laboratory model to study how leukaemia develops and why some treatments stop working
The Fellowship is being announced to mark World Leukaemia Day (4 September)
A Stockport charity that has been funding pioneering medical research for more than 60 years has awarded £450,000 to support a new approach to studying leukaemia without the use of animals.
The announcement coincides with World Leukaemia Day on 4 September.
Bramhall-based The Humane Research Trust has awarded the Fellowship to Dr Minerva Bosch-Fortea at Queen Mary University of London. Her research will create a laboratory model using human cells to study how leukaemia develops inside the bone marrow and why some cancers become resistant to treatment.
Nearly 10,000 people are diagnosed with leukaemia in the UK every year. While treatments have improved, resistance to treatment remains a major challenge in many forms of the disease.
Leukaemia is a type of blood cancer that begins in the bone marrow, the soft tissue inside our bones where blood cells are made. As the disease develops, it changes this environment in ways that can help cancer cells survive and make treatments less effective.
Researchers have traditionally used mice to investigate these processes. However, important differences between mice and humans mean animal models cannot fully recreate what happens in the human body.
The project could provide new insights into leukaemia that are difficult to gain from animal models, helping researchers understand why some treatments initially work but later fail. The new approach could also reduce the use of mice in this area of leukaemia research by up to 80%.
Dr Minerva Bosch-Fortea said:
“We hope to better understand how leukaemia progresses and why treatments fail, while demonstrating that more predictive and ethical approaches to cancer research are possible.”
The Fellowship also includes £10,000 in co-funding from the Naturewatch Foundation, which will support public and community engagement activities associated with the project.
Alison Giles, CEO of The Humane Research Trust said:
“We are delighted to support Dr Bosch-Fortea through this Fellowship. Her research represents exactly the kind of innovative, human-focused science that we seek to promote.
By developing advanced animal-free methods, this work has the potential not only to improve our understanding of leukaemia but also to accelerate the transition towards more ethical and scientifically relevant approaches to medical research.”
Find out more on our website: humaneresearch.org.uk
