The leading national blood cancer research charity, Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF), has awarded scientists at the University of Glasgow £30,000 to carry out vital research into leukaemia. Around 18,000 people are diagnosed with leukaemia or one of the related cancers of the blood in the UK every year.

Dr Gerard Graham and Dr Katrin Ottersbach from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow have been given funding for a research project focusing on the way leukaemia cells divide and spread.

"One problem with leukaemia is that the cancer cells lose the ability to respond to normal instructions that control what they do. In the course of our work, we have identified a protein that stops important blood cells dividing," Dr Graham explains.

"It is now clear that leukaemia cells do not recognise this signal and continue to divide. There is therefore, a possibility that this inability to respond to this protein contributes to leukaemia," he adds.

"The aim of our research is to examine how this protein communicates with leukaemic cells.This could help us to determine why leukaemia cells do not respond to this protein and what role this lack of response plays in the development of leukaemias," Dr Graham highlights.

Dr Ottersbach recently completed her Ph.D at the Beatson Institute for Cancer. She had won a prestigious Gordon Piller Ph.D Studentship from Leukaemia Research Fund to carry out her doctorate under the supervision of Dr Graham.

Leukaemia Research Fund, 43 Great Ormond Street, London WC1N 3JJ Registered charity 216032, a company limited by guarantee 738089

Media Relations Office (media@gla.ac.uk)

The studentship scheme was set up in 1991 to mark the retirement of the Fund's first director, Dr Gordon Piller, who helped the organisation to become the largest national charity solely dedicated to research on leukaemia and related cancers of the blood.

The charity provides free patient information literature on all cancers of the blood and related conditions either by phone on 020 7405 0101, by post at 43 Great Ormond Street, London WC1N 3JJ. Alternatively, this literature can be downloaded from our website at:

weblink: www.lrf.org.uk

For more information, please contact Andrew Miller or Andrew Trehearne at the LRF press office on 020 7269 9019

e: press@lrf.org.uk

or

Dr Gerard Graham: 0141 330 3982

g.graham@beatson.gla.ac.uk or the University press Office on

0141 330 3535

First published: 24 January 2001