Bone Marrow Transplantation

Senior Scientist

Professor Geoff Hill

Summary

The laboratory uses preclinical transplant models to dissect the immunological mechanisms of transplant rejection and aims to improve patient outcome through new therapies to prevent and treat graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Research focuses on pathways of alloreactivity leading to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and graft-versus-leukaemia (GVL) effects. The ultimate aim is to generate testable therapeutic interventions that attenuate GVHD and improve GVL.

Conditions researched

• Graft-versus-host disease
• Leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma

Current research

• The interleukin-17 family of cytokines as mediators of transplant outcome
• Mechanisms of antigen presentation after transplantation
• Immunological mechanisms of leukaemia and myeloma eradication after transplantation
• Administration of an IL-6R antibody to prevent GVHD in clinical bone marrow transplant (BMT) recipients
• The treatment of steroid refractory acute GVHD with CD52 targeted Ab and TNF antagonists
• The use of type I interferons in preclinical and clinical BMT to improve the eradication of leukaemia.
• The use of suicide gene-transfected effector after cllincal haplo-identical BMT
• The use of induced regulatory T cells to treat clinical chronic GVHD

Staff

Senior Scientist: Professor Geoffrey Hill

Postdoctoral staff: Dr Motoko Koyama, Dr Antiopi Varelias, Dr Kate Markey, Dr Siok Tey, Dr Ping Zhang, Dr Slavica Vuckovic

Research Assistants: Rachel Kuns, Stuart Olver, Neil Faffelt, Mary Lor, Bianca Teal, Jyothy Raju

PhD students: Lucie Leveque, Melody Cheong

Clinical Trial Coordinators: Elise Sturgeon, Justine Leach, Christine Jenkinson

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge support from the following funding bodies:

• Wellcome Trust
• National Health and Medical Research Council
• Queensland Office of Health and Medical Research
• Cancer Council Queensland
• The Atlantic Philanthropies
• Leukaemia Foundation of Queensland
• Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer Cancer
  

Collaborators

Professor James Ferrara, Director of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Department of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Michigan, MI, USA

Professor Robert Negrin, Chief, Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, Stanford University Medical Center, CA, USA

Professor Bruce Blazar, University of Minnesota, MN, USA

Professor David Hume, The Roslin Institute and R(D)SVS, University of Edinburgh Roslin, Midlothian, EH25 9PS, Scotland, UK

Professor Ranjeny Thomas, Diamantina Institute, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Qld, Australia

Professor Ian Frazer, Diamantina Institute, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Qld, Australia

Professor Mariapia Degli-Esposti, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, Australia

Professor Steven Porcelli, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA

Professor Mark Smyth, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, St Andrews Place, Melbourne, Vic, Australia

Professor Dale Godfrey, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Vic, Australia

Dr Andrew Clouston, Envoi Pathology, Brisbane, Qld, Australia