Utilising cord blood-derived Natural Killer cells to prevent post-transplant relapse in Childhood Le

Utilising cord blood-derived Natural Killer cells to prevent post-transplant relapse in Childhood Leukaemia.

For children who have relapsed from leukaemia therapeutic options are currently limited. This project proposes to utilise the therapeutic potential of Natural Killer (NK) cells, a type of immune cells able to kill leukaemia cancer cells.

Using state-of-the-art preclinical models, we plan to develop a new method to expand NK cells from cord blood and test their ability to protect against paediatric leukaemia. Our research will provide critical data to inform the design of NK cell-based immunotherapies.

This project will generate pivotal pre-clinical data to develop new immunotherapies for young cancer patients. Although this project has a focus on childhood leukaemia, immunotherapeutic approaches developed in this proposal could also be applied to other cancers.