PhD: Multi-omic analysis of human blood cancer stem cells to develop new predictive tools, and develop novel culture systems

About the Project
Cancer is swiftly becoming one of the leading cause of death in western populations, and it is estimated that 1in2 people born in the U.K. after 1960 will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. Approximately 375,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in the U.K. every year (>1,000 per day) and only 50% of those are expected to survive. That equates to more than 450 cancer related deaths per day. Demonstrating the critical need for a better understanding of the underlying biology of cancer and development of new effective therapies.
Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a blood cancer with a very poor prognosis. Treatment options have remained largely unchanged in the last 30 years, with good initial response to therapy, but high rates of relapse and very poor overall survival. One of the key problems with current therapy is the inability to deplete cells at the apex of the disease, so called leukaemic stem cells (LSCs). These cells are highly resistant to therapy and are the origins of relapse and ultimately the root cause of poor prognosis in AML.
In this PhD you will use a large array of AML multi-omic datasets matched to LSC functional potential to deconvolute the key factors that would predict the ability of patient samples to evade chemotherapy, engraft immunodeficient mice and understand the fundamental biology. You will use the most promising biomarkers, mechanisms and predictive omic types to understand the key requirements to maintain and expand AML LSCs ex vivo (in a dish) to replace the need for animals in studying LSC biology and testing new therapeutic targets. Ultimately this PhD will aim to make major changes to the way we approach studying human AML in laboratory setting.
You will join the Proteostem research group (https://www.proteostem.co.uk) in the exciting and thriving Centre for Blood Research (https://www.york.ac.uk/biomedical-research-institute/centre-for-blood-research-at-york/) at the University of York. You will be integrated with both the Grey lab and the Data Sciences research unit, offering training in computational approaches and cell biology approaches in parallel.
Please direct informal enquiries to William.grey@york.ac.uk