US award for Peter Mac researcher

US award for Peter Mac researcher

The US based Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has awarded Peter Mac Group leader Associate Professor Lev Kats with a highly prestigious Career Development Program Award.

The award provides Associate Professor Kats with USD $600,000 (AUD $903,000) over five years to further assist his lab's research program which aims to develop new therapeutic strategies to improve outcomes for blood cancer patients.

In particular he will work to develop novel targeted therapies for acute myeloid leukaemia and multiple myeloma.

Associate Professor Kats explained that outcomes for acute myeloid leukaemia and multiple myeloma are far from optimal and new therapies to combat treatment resistance are urgently needed.

"My research aims to identify and target selective vulnerabilities of acute myeloid leukaemia and multiple myeloma cells," Associate Professor Kats said.

"I am particularly interested in epigenetic and metabolic pathways that control self-renewal and differentiation of blood cells.

"We believe that if we can understand and find ways to control these pathways, we can influence cell fate for therapeutic benefit."

Each year in Australia around 900 people are diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and a further 2,600 with multiple myeloma.