Dr Andrew Perkins wins Cancer Council grant

The Perkins research group in 2019 (Andrew 4th from left)

Congratulations to Dr Andrew Perkins, Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, on the award of a grant from the Victorian Cancer Agency to investigate a new target for treatment of chronic blood cancers known as myeloproliferative neoplasms.

Dr Andrew Perkins has been awarded $293,000 over three years (2020-2022) for his application "Validation of new druggable JAK-STAT targets in myeloproliferative neoplasms". The funding is made via the Cancer Council Victoria Grants-in-Aid grant program.

Dr Perkins said that they have employed genomics techniques to discover new direct JAK-STAT target genes, which drive excess blood production in chronic blood cancers. "This project will test whether targeting two of these new genes, using CRISPR [a family of DNA sequences] gene editing or drugs, can improve survival in mouse models of blood cancer. We will also test whether expression of these genes will provide useful biomarkers of disease activity in patients," he said.

See more about the Perkins research group.