Biology of Childhood Leukaemia Group

Professor Mel Greaves’ Biology of Childhood Leukaemia Group is funded by The Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund and Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and seeks to uncover the causes of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

Our group seeks to uncover the pre-clinical natural history, clonal evolution and aetiology of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

Professor Sir Mel Greaves, Biology of Childhood Leukaemia Group

  • Our specialist programme funded by Cancer Research UK is focussed on mouse modelling of the role of the gut microbiome in susceptibility to infection triggered leukaemia.
  • Continued investigation of the genetics of leukaemia in pairs of identical twins (world wide).


Biology of Childhood Leukaemia

Our specialist programme of research (funded by The Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund and Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research) seeks to uncover the pre-clinical natural history, clonal evolution and aetiology of the major subtype of paediatric leukaemia: childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

Individual projects in the portfolio are designed to endorse developmental models for these leukaemias involving pre-natal initiation and a trigger for overt clinical disease involving abnormal immune responses to infection.

We have an extensive network of UK-based and international collaborators providing access to patient samples. Our epidemiological interests are pursued via the UK Children’s Cancer Study Group (UKCCS) and via international cooperation (e.g. Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan and Italy). Our genetic studies on inherited susceptibility to ALL are pursued in collaboration with Professor Richard Houlston and colleagues in the Genetics Section of the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR).

Key review references to group’s work:

  • Greaves MF (2006) Infection, immune responses and the aetiology of childhood leukaemia. Nature Reviews Cancer, 6: 193-203.
  • Greaves MF, Maia AT, Wiemels JL, Ford AM (2003) Leukemia in twins: lessons in natural history. Blood, 102: 2321-2333.
  • Greaves MF, Wiemels J (2003) Origins of chromosome translocations in childhood leukaemia. Nature Reviews Cancer, 3: 639-649.
  • Greaves M (2007) Darwinian medicine: a case for cancer. Nat Rev Cancer, 7: 213-221.
  • Anderson K, Lutz C, van Delft FW, Bateman CM, Guo Y, Colman SM, Kempski H, Moorman AV, Titley I, Swansbury J, Kearney L, Enver T, and Greaves M (2011) Genetic variegation of clonal architecture and propagating cells in leukaemia. Nature, 469: 356-361.
  • Greaves M and Maley C (2012) Clonal evolution in cancer. Nature, 481: 306-313.
  • Greaves M (2015) Evolutionary determinants of cancer. Cancer Discovery, 5: 806-820
  • Pappaemannuil et al (2014). Nature Genetics, 46: 115-125. (See my full list of papers for details)

Greaves M (2018) A causal mechanism for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Nature Reviews Cancer, 18: 471-484.

Sir Mel Greaves

Group Leader:

Biology of Childhood Leukaemia Mel Greaves

Professor Sir Mel Greaves is the Founding Director of the ICR Centre for Evolution and Cancer. Professor Greaves is investigating what triggers leukaemia in children. He has received many awards for his work and is a Fellow of the Royal Society, an Honorary Member of the Royal College of Physicians, and a Fellow of the United Kingdom Academy of Medical Sciences.

Researchers in this group

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Phone: +44 20 3437 6074

Email: [email protected]

Location: Sutton

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Phone: +44 20 8722 4066

Email: [email protected]

Location: Sutton

Dr Sureyya Kose .

Phone: +44 20 8722 4674

Email: [email protected]

Location: Sutton

Dr Sureyya Kose recently earned her PhD in Chemistry, investigating the interaction between microbial gene expression and host innate immunity to reveal processes that may lead to cholelithiasis. Presently, her work involves the identification of genetic susceptibility to childhood cancer.

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Phone: +44 20 3437 6387

Email: [email protected]

Location: Sutton

Sir Mel Greaves's group have written 50 publications

Most recent new publication 18/3/2008

See all their publications

Recent discoveries from this group

07/12/22

Portrait photograph of Professor Daniel Catovsky taken in 2017.Scientists and clinicians at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and from around the world, have shared their condolences and celebrated the many achievements of Professor Daniel Catovsky, who died last week.

Professor Catovsky had an exceptional international reputation as a haematologist and specialist in adult blood cell cancers. He was particularly focused on chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) but also studied other, rarer conditions such as prolymphocytic leukaemia and hairy cell leukaemia.

Improving diagnosis and treatment of leukaemia

The most recognised of his achievements was how he standardised diagnostic methods and the treatment of CLL through clinical trials. He was also extensively involved in the training of junior haematologists.

Born in Argentina, Daniel Catovsky qualified in medicine in Buenos Aires in 1961. He left the country with his wife, Professor Dame Julia Polak, in the late 1960s to come to the UK to work with Professor David Galton at the Hammersmith Hospital who, at the time, was one of the UK’s first haemato-oncologists. Galton had previously been at the ICR and The Royal Marsden and it would be there that Professor Catovsky would move in 1988 to be Head of Academic Haematology.

From 1978 to 1998, Professor Catovsky led three randomised trials into CLL treatments sponsored by the Medical Research Council, working with the Oxford Clinical Trial Service Unit. Those three trials were followed by the Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF) CLL4 trial in 1999, which resulted in more than 30 papers. The early CLL trials helped Catovsky and his colleagues to learn a lot about the main chemotherapy agent available for CLL, chlorambucil, and how best to use it.

Professor Catovsky was elected the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999. He was awarded the British Society for Haematology's medal for contributions to British haematology in 2000 and the Rai Binet Medal for outstanding contributions to CLL research in 2005.

An active retirement

Professor Catovsky retired in 2003 but was still scientifically active as an ICR Fellow attached to Professor Sir Mel Greaves’ team. He continued to work with his close colleague Monica Else and, despite retirement, forged many successful collaborations with, for example, Professor Richard Houlston at the ICR and many others internationally.

Only last year he co-authored a paper with Monica Else that showed that death from infection – the leading cause of death for CLL patients – is linked to specific gene mutations. The findings indicated that testing for these mutations could be used to identify patients at a higher risk of dying from infection and inform disease management strategies.

Professor Catovsky’s wife, Professor Dame Julia Polak, was a distinguished pathologist at Hammersmith Hospital who, after undergoing a heart and lung transplant in 1995, decided to move from pathology into the emerging field of tissue engineering and became Head of the Centre for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at Imperial College London. She died in August 2014. They had two sons and a daughter but tragically they lost their daughter, a successful barrister, after she was killed in an accident while crossing London Bridge.

A wonderful mentor and human being

Professor Sir Mel Greaves, Founding Director of the ICR Centre for Evolution and Cancer and Professor of Cell Biology at the ICR, said:

“In the late 1990s, Nature published a listing of the most prolifically publishing clinical scientists in oncology worldwide. As I recall, Daniel was eighth. But Julia, to Daniel’s great delight and amusement, was sixth! I told him he needed to pull his socks up.

“There has been a huge response to Daniel’s passing with many colleagues and friends from all over the world expressing their profound sadness and how much they admired and respected him as a wonderful mentor and human being. He will be greatly missed.”

Professor Richard Houlston, Professor of Molecular and Population Genetics at the ICR, said:

“It has been my privilege to have had Daniel as a colleague and friend for the last 25 years. From my first meeting with Daniel to when I met with him only a month or so ago, he was always enthusiastic and excited about research.

“He encouraged me to work on the genetics of CLL, which was a great passion of his and a disease that he really put on the map – describing the key features of the disease and how it should be managed. Working with him on CLL has revealed great insights into the aetiology and biology of this common cancer. As many know, he has influenced the treatment of CLL not only directly through his work but also through nurturing haematologists around the world. I will truly miss his friendship and warmth.”