CRYSTAL-Immune pump-priming project
Project team
Christina Halsey
Positions: Professor of Paediatric Haemato-Oncology & Head of School, School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow, and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Haematologist, Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow.
Biography: I am a clinical academic pediatric hematologist and Head of the School of Cancer Sciences in Glasgow, leading 200 staff and 200 postgraduate students to carry out our mission to perform patient-centred science to transform cancer outcomes.
My particular research focus is on central nervous system (CNS) involvement in acute leukemia. Current treatments for CNS leukemia are toxic, and there is a lack of novel therapies in this area. This represents a major unmet clinical need. My laboratory researches how leukemic cells adapt to the nutrient-poor CNS microenvironment, novel biomarkers to guide treatment, and ways to improve current CNS-directed treatments. We aim to develop kinder and gentler treatments personalized to each child's risk of CNS relapse.
Alasdair Duguid
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Biography: I am an early-stage clinical academic at the University of Edinburgh, based in Professor Katrin Ottersbach's lab.
During my PhD, I identified key differences in immune cell composition between the bone marrow and central nervous system (CNS) niches in a paediatric B-ALL model. This has shaped my independent research focusing on the CNS leukaemia niche, its immune microenvironment, and how it affects immunotherapy efficacy.
Project aims—a summary by Christina Halsey
Immunotherapies have revolutionized our treatment of systemic leukemia in children but are much less effective in the CNS.
This innovation grant will support our international CRYSTAL-Immune consortium to:
- Understand how the unique CNS microenvironment influences immune function
- Investigate how immunotherapies can be optimized to eradicate CNS leukemia
The grant is crucial for advancing this work and complements ongoing pre-clinical studies using murine models of CNS leukemia.
In addition, the grant will fund the generation of vital preliminary data to map the immune landscape of cerebrospinal fluid from patients at diagnosis and during treatment with immunotherapy, including blinatumomab and CAR T cells. This mapping will be conducted using single-cell RNA sequencing and spectral flow cytometry.
This grant provides a foundation for future funding applications, supporting larger collaborative efforts with the CRYSTAL-Immune consortium (Central neRvous sYStem Therapy for Acute lymphoblastic Leukaemia: Optimising Immune approaches) and furthering my development as an independent researcher.
EHA’s support is instrumental in fostering this innovation and enabling early-career researchers to make meaningful contributions to the field.
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