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A new Swedish study shows that whole genome sequencing can detect clinically relevant genomic abnormalities in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, ALL, and has great potential to be implemented in the diagnostic setting. The study was carried out by researchers within the Clinical Genetics group at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, the Genomic Medicine Sweden for haematology and published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Oncology.

Post-doctoral fellow Amos Tuval at the Department of Oncology-Pathology has been selected by the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to receive the 2023 ASH Global Research Award. Amos is one of 12 talented early-career investigators selected for this honor.

Researchers at the Department of Oncology-Pathology have together with researchers from The European Molecular Biology Laboratory published a paper in Nature Chemical Biology where they developed a method that can identify important differences between proteins in an unbiased way.

Next-generation sequencing studies have in recent years revealed numerous recurrently mutated genes in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). These mutations are usually found in a relatively small percentage of cases and associated with poor clinical outcome.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, among others, have studied the benefit of adding an established drug as a novel targeted therapy in the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). The results suggest that the drug hydroxyurea can increase treatment efficacy at a relatively low cost. The results, which were published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, could have significant implications for cancer treatment, including in low-income countries.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital have developed a new kind of immunotherapy for leukemia. The results of a study published in Nature Biotechnology show that the therapy kills cancer cells from patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The researchers now want to conduct a clinical study and also test the method on other types of cancer.

The Tobias Foundation grant in 2020 has been awarded to Magnus Tobiasson and Eva Hellström Lindberg, both researchers at Karolinska Institutet. The grant amounts to SEK 10 million over a five-year period. It will support research on early detection of relapse after stem cell transplantation for patients with myelodysplastic syndrome.

A new study has been initiated to evaluate whole-genome and RNA-sequencing as a first line diagnostic approach for patients in Sweden with acute leukemia. The study is conducted jointly by the national R&D platform Genomic Medicine Sweden and the biotech company Illumina – and is coordinated from Karolinska Institutet.

A common and inexpensive drug may be used to counteract treatment resistance in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), one of the most common forms of blood cancer. This is the conclusion of a study in mice and human blood cells performed at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab and published in the medical journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. The researchers will now launch a clinical study to test the new combination treatment in patients.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have explored NK cell-based immunotherapy on patients with treatment-resistant leukaemia. The study, which is published in the scientific journal Clinical Cancer Research, shows that the new therapy is effective against several types of leukaemia.