Childhood cancer researcher Luke Jones explores more effective treatments for a form of paediatric blood cancer
SBI's Dr. Luke Jones was recently awarded the Irish Cancer Society's Translational Research Fellowship, a prestigious honour that will enable him to further his research in paediatric blood cancer. The positive news came during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which takes place each September.
Jones is a postodoctoral researcher in Prof. Jonathan Bond's group at SBI, joining the team in 2019. He also won the Novartis Career Development Award in 2019.
Below is an article detailing Jones's new fellowship, originally featured on the Irish Cancer Society website on September 21, 2020.
Congratulations, Luke!
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Luke is originally from Sydney, Australia, where he did his undergraduate & post-graduate degrees. He has been working in childhood leukaemia since 2012.
He moved to The Netherlands in 2017 to work at the Princess Maxima Institute for Pediatric Oncology. His work here was focused on finding new treatments for a particularly aggressive form of paediatric acute lymphoblastic leukaemia that occurs in infants.
Luke moved to Ireland in late 2018 and in 2019 he joined Prof. Jonathan Bond’s research group at Systems Biology Ireland (SBI, in UCD) to gain expertise in systems biology to allow pursuit of innovative insights into acute leukaemias.
He will begin work on a new project within SBI in January of next year after receiving funding from the Irish Cancer Society.
"This is the perfect place to undertake my translational fellowship, as I am able to work closely with and learn from world-leading experts in systems biology," Luke said.
"Additionally, our research group is co-located at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), Crumlin. This allows us to gain valuable insight into important clinical issues, and to keep outcomes for paediatric patients at the forefront of our work at all times," Luke said.
The goal of this fellowship is to identify more effective treatments for paediatric blood cancers.
Luke’s research is particularly focused on a type of leukaemia called acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). AML accounts for approximately 20% of all paediatric leukaemias and is the leading cause of blood cancer-related mortality in childhood.
Survival rates for paediatric AML have improved dramatically in recent decades, now exceeding 60%, however this is mostly due to improvements in patient care rather than the introduction of new therapies.
In fact, treatments for paediatric AML have remained largely unchanged for the last 50 years. While these drugs can work well, they are very toxic and also harm normal tissues. In addition to short-term side-effects, these drugs can also cause significant long-term complications, meaning that even when a child is cured their quality of life in later years may be reduced.
‘’Through this fellowship, I want to find more precise treatment options that target the cancer without damaging normal cells by identifying the ‘Achilles heel’ of blood cancer cells. Many blood cancers are aggressive because mutations cause overactivity in enzymes called kinases, causing cells to grow uncontrollably. Kinases could be directly targeted with new non-chemotherapy drugs called kinase inhibitors. However, these drugs are often ineffective when used on their own, with many working better in combination. The challenge is identifying which combinations will work best in individual patients,’’ Luke said.
Luke will tackle this challenge using an approach called systems biology, utilising computer models to identify drug combinations effective against high-risk blood cancers possessing different kinase mutations. To make sure the computer simulations are correct, he will test whether these drug combinations are able to effectively kill leukaemia cells in the lab. Once he confirms that these combinations are effective against leukaemia cells in the lab, he will test them in mouse models of leukaemia. This will help to ensure that these combinations will be effective when given to patients.
“Overall, I believe that using systems biology will help identify new drug combinations that will provide better, safer treatments and improve outcomes for paediatric patients with leukaemia,” he said.
“I am also extremely excited about developing our patient and public involvement strategy throughout the fellowship, especially the development of a patient advisory group. It will be a privilege to work closely with, and learn from, patient advocates throughout this fellowship.”
