Blood cancers are characterised by genetic abnormalities and their detection is critical for diagnosis, prognostic stratification, choice of treatment and outcome. Current methods assess chromosomal changes in only up to 200 cells, are labour-intensive and of poor resolution. They are therefore inherently imprecise and contribute to the unacceptably high diagnostic error rate of up to 25%.

Without an accurate diagnosis patients are deprived optimal therapy, leading to inevitable deaths.

This research focuses on new and specific testing methods such as the “immuno-flowFISH” which is a fast automated tool that quantifies proteins, determines cell identity, and detects abnormal numbers of chromosomes. This project aims to develop a new capability of immuno-flowFISH to detect numerical and structural chromosomal changes in a range of different cells.

Immuno-flowFISH has the potential to revolutionise care by increasing diagnostic accuracy, earlier detection of recurrence and drug resistance, and optimise diagnosis to better inform treatment choices by identifying significant abnormalities that currently go undetected.

This project is kindly supported by MPN Alliance Australia.