Blood Cancer
Blood cancers are a unique type of malignancy affecting circulating cells in the blood, instead of solid tumours typically associated with “cancer”.
Collectively, Blood Cancers are the 5th most common cancer type in the UK, affecting more than 40,000 people each year and they are the third highest cause of cancer deaths.
The Blood Cancer Research group at Queen’s University Belfast are working to understand more about disease mechanisms in a range of blood cancers and investigating new ways to treat them.
In the Blood Cancer section of Cancer Digest, you will find the main challenges we are trying to address, as well as how far we’ve come in contributing towards better outcomes using a wide range of experimental approaches and platforms.
Two of our experts, Prof Ken Mills and Dr Lisa Crawford give us an overview of Blood Cancer projects ongoing in our Centre, and the impact of this work is also shown through the lens of two of our clinical research fellows, Dr Graeme Greenfield; Dr Phil Weir (which you will find in italics throughout our page sections); see also what our students have to say about their work and experience while developing knowledge and opportunities to improve outcomes of Blood Cancer patients.
As a result, there are many types of blood cancers, each with different prognosis and unique treatment approached. A wide team of researchers with diverse expertise is working at the PGJCCR, mirroring the multiple disease types and equally multiple challenges associated with the treatment of Blood Cancers.
Find out more from our Experts
Perhaps the most striking image of blood cancer that comes immediately to mind is the young child with leukaemia. Thankfully, with the advances of treatment which have been driven in part by the hard work of clinicians and scientists but also in no insignificant way by those individuals consenting to and treated as part of clinical trials, we have seen great improvements in survival in this patient group.
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They generously gave up some of their very precious time to tell us what brought them and their projects together, their experience and insights in what it takes to develop as a scientist, what they bring and get in return in the process.
Hear from our PhD students