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

.

Phone: +44 20 3437 6074

Email: [email protected]

Location: Sutton

.

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.

.

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

28/12/18

Professor Sir Mel Greaves

Professor Greaves, or Sir Mel, as he can now be known, has carried out groundbreaking work to understand the hidden natural history and causes of childhood leukaemia during a 35-year career at The Institute of Cancer Research, London – leading to advances in diagnosis, treatment and potentially prevention.

He has also been a pioneer in identifying that cancers undergo a form of Darwinian evolution that leads to drug resistance – an insight which has opened up an exciting new field of cancer research and treatment.

Professor Greaves is now raising money for a new research programme designed to test whether childhood leukaemia can indeed be prevented.

Our latest research shows that within the next decade, we can make acute lymphoblastic leukaemia preventable. Your support will help us make this disease a thing of the past.

Read more

Pioneering methods

Professor Greaves’s knighthood for services to children’s leukaemia research comes after his receipt of the Royal Society’s prestigious Royal Medal in 2017 – following in the footsteps of previous pre-eminent winners including Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday and Francis Crick.

Inspired by visits to an Italian hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London in the 1970s, where he met children with leukaemia, Professor Greaves became compelled to understand how and why the disease develops in otherwise healthy children.

He was also a pioneer in introducing the concept that cancers progress and become more malignant and drug resistant through a process equivalent to the evolution of species by natural selection.

Additionally, he developed the novel insight that vulnerability to many common cancers including childhood leukaemia, breast cancer and skin cancer reflects mismatches between our evolutionary, historical adaptations and our contemporary lifestyles.

By studying identical twins with leukaemia and archived blood samples from newborn babies, in the 1990s, Professor Greaves’s lab at the ICR uncovered the mutational changes that trigger childhood leukaemia in utero.

He gradually built up evidence showing that the disease is caused through a covert, two-step process of genetic mutation and exposure to infection.

The first step involves a genetic mutation that occurs in the foetus and predisposes children to leukaemia – but only 1 per cent of those born with this genetic change go on to develop the disease.

The second step is a trigger later in childhood by exposure to one or more common infections, but primarily in children who experienced 'clean' childhoods in the first year of life, without much interaction with other infants or older children.

 

'I am extremely grateful for the honour'

Professor Greaves is now taking part in a major fundraising appeal seeking support for the next stage in his research, where he aims to see if leukaemia can be prevented.

The New Year’s Honours list is announced by the Cabinet Office and consists of a range of honours for people from a wide variety of walks of life.

Professor Sir Mel Greaves, who is Director of the Centre for Evolution and Cancer at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:

“I am honoured, delighted and somewhat bewildered to have received this honour. When I started out in cancer research my aim was only ever to understand what was causing leukaemia in children and how this new knowledge could make their lives better.

“It has been a wonderful journey over the last 40 years since I first started studying leukaemia, and I feel very privileged to have been able to contribute towards the unpicking of this once mysterious and lethal disease.

“To gain a knighthood was never remotely in my sights, but I am extremely grateful for the honour and hope it can inspire my many young colleagues as they also look to push back the boundaries of cancer research.”

Inspiring cancer researchers across the world

Professor Paul Workman, Chief Executive of the ICR, said:

“Everyone at the ICR is incredibly proud of Mel for this thoroughly well-deserved honour, and more importantly for the lifetime of pioneering cancer research which has earned it.

“Mel’s breakthroughs have helped transform our understanding of how childhood leukaemia develops and how it is treated, and the next stage of his research has the potential to turn it into a preventable disease.”

“We also have to thank Mel for inspiring cancer researchers across the world to look at cancer from an evolutionary perspective. This approach has transformed the way we think about cancer, and is inspiring us to create a new generation of anti-evolution treatments with the potential to overcome drug resistance.”