Dr Liu Lu

Research Focus

The first generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs; imatinib) are the front-line therapy for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), but subset of patients respond poorly and suffer adverse. One approach is to use imatinib frontline and then switch to a more potent second generation TKI if the BCR-ABL1 (IS) level is still greater than 10% at 3 months. This has been termed early molecular response (EMR) failure and has been shown to be associated with significantly inferior outcomes. One of my research focus is to develop predictors of treatment failure to TKI (imatinib, nilotinib and dasatinib), so that EMR failure, and subsequent adverse outcomes, could be minimized in high-risk cases.

Secondly, novel Bcr-Abl inhibitors, such as ponatinib and ABL001, have recently been demonstrated to successfully overcome mutation-based resistance to the first and second generation TKIs in a cellular screen. Therefore, other aim of my research is to determine the efficacy of ABL001 combines with other TKI (e.g. imatinib, nilotinib) in CML cells, and therefore facilitates future therapeutic design. I also focus on investigating the potential resistance mechanisms to the combination therapy of ABL001 and TKI, by generating and characterising resistant CML cell lines.