Vasiliki Symeonidou

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) is the most aggressive blood cancer. Although progress has been made in treating young patient with AML, older patients diagnosed with this disease have a dismal prognosis. One of most common treatments for these patients is hypomethylating agents. Interestingly, even though hypomethylating agents have been used in the clinic for over a decade, we still lack fundamental understanding of their exact mechanisms of action. This gap in our knowledge prevents us from harvesting the true power of these agents. For my research I want to understand the mechanism of action and resistance of these agents. In addition to hypomethylating agents, I am also investigating the mechanisms of action and resistant of cereblon E3 ligase modulating drugs.

I joined the Vyas group in August 2020 as a Post-Doctoral Researcher. I moved to Oxford from Edinburgh where in 2020 I was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. For my Ph.D. I studied a different but equally aggressive type of leukaemia, infant MLL-AF4-drive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.