Dr Laura Eadie

Dr Eadie is an award-winning biomedical researcher and SAHMRI's T-ALL Research Group Leader. She is a two times Cancer Council South Australia Beat Cancer Project Fellow, an Australian Institute of Policy and Science Young Tall Poppy, a previous Fulbright scholar and a TEDx speaker. Dr Eadie has been awarded over $4 million in funding from funding bodies including NHMRC, MRFF, Leukaemia Foundation, Cancer Council. Together with her team, Dr Eadie investigates novel modes of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) development and progression.

T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) is a frequently fatal disease affecting children and young adults, driven by diverse cytogenetic and molecular alterations that disrupt normal T-cell development. Despite the many reported alterations driving disease, all patients diagnosed with T-ALL are treated with non-specific, high-dose chemotherapy. While effective for most, ~20% of paediatric patients will either fail therapy (refractory disease) or relapse within 5 years. Most of these children will die of their disease. The outlook is worse for adults as less than 10% of those with relapsed T-ALL survive long term. To treat all T-ALL patients more effectively, a better understanding of the underlying cause of the disease is critical.