Dr Onima Chowdhury and Professor Adam Mead, along with MRC WIMM colleagues Dr Supat Thongjuea and Dr Lynn Quek, will investigate the clinical application of single cell sequencing for early diagnosis and response prediction in myelodysplastic syndromes.
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a group of blood cancers in which the bone marrow fails to make normal levels of blood cells. MDS can be broadly classified into two major groups: high-risk MDS, in which patients progress to acute myeloid leukaemia with a very poor survival rate; and low-risk MDS, in which the disease is less aggressive but patients still suffer from a huge burden of symptoms that are often the result of anaemia.
There are a number of exciting new targeted treatment options for low-risk MDS. However, these do not work in all patients and, particularly given the high economic cost of newer treatments, current biomarkers are not sufficiently predictive of treatment response. There is a need to more precisely categorise MDS to predict the disease trajectory and the response to therapy so that the most effective treatment can be given to each patient.
Large investments in sequencing technology in clinical laboratory services are enabling precision medicine in certain cancers and revolutionising patient care. Dr Onima Chowdhury, who is also a Consultant Haematologist will be working with her team at the MRC WIMM to explore the use of single-cell genomics in the clinical diagnosis and management of MDS. Funded by a Cancer Research UK Early Detection and Diagnosis Primer Award, the team will seek to develop a simple, clinically applicable processing and analysis pipeline, as well as identifying biomarkers that correlate and can perhaps supersede current diagnostic modalities.
Long-term, the team hope that this approach will be able to improve outcomes of patients through improved diagnosis, risk prediction and targeted treatment in MDS and other haematological malignancies.