MPN AA is very proud to announce that with the help of our supporters, we have donated $15,000 for MPN research in Australia to Professor Wendy Erber and her colleagues, Dr Kathryn Fuller, Dr Henry Hui and Dr Belinda Guo at the University of Western Australia. The team are undertaking research on a new technique to see if they can detect which MPN patients may be at risk of progressing to leukaemia or marrow fibrosis. It is hoped this may ultimately provide an alternative to the current method of utilising bone marrow biopsies for the purpose of detecting the first signs of disease escape or progression. Although only a minority of MPN patients are affected, it is not currently known who this might affect or when this will occur. By the time symptoms appear, it is generally difficult to cure. Hence a predictor of progression may assist in providing treatment earlier and possibly providing cures.

The method the team will use is their own invention, and the one that won a Eureka Award (affectionately known as the “Oscars of Science”!) in 2018. As you will see from the Youtube video it is a flow cytometry method that enables the study thousands of cells to see if the cell-of-interest has the chromosome change that may predict progression.

We wish Prof Erber, and Drs Kathy Fuller, Henry Hui and Belinda Guo every success with their research and look forward to sharing their progress in the future.