Treatment-induced DNA methylation heterogeneity and implications for cell growth in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

This session will focus on hypomethylating agents (HMAs), which are used to treat people living with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and myelodysplasia. While these epigenetic therapies extend survival in many patients, low response rates and therapy-resistant relapse remain significant challenges. Relapse is thought to arise from cells that survive and adapt to treatment, so single-cell multi-omic analysis and colony assays been used to characterise the heterogeneous response of AML cells to HMAs. This has revealed treatment-induced heterogeneity as well as processes that facilitate cell growth after treatment. Join us to see how single-cell analysis with linked functional assays can identify new treatment strategies for cancer.

Speaker
Dr Heather Lee. NHMRC Research Fellow, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, The University of Newcastle