Eunice Cho, a University of Toronto student from the Faculty of Medicine, is one of 19 medical students and 11 residents across Canada, United States, and Mexico who have received the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Hematology Opportunities for the Next Generation of Research Scientists (HONOURS) award.

The HONOURS award was created to promote research in hematology, the study of blood and blood-forming tissues. The successful candidates, none of which have completed a previous hematology-related training program, received a stipend to conduct hematology research. They will also recieve extra funding to attend two ASH annual meetings, held this year in New Orleans and the following year in San Francisco.

All applicants were required to write a personal statement outlining their motivation to conduct hematology research. For Cho, it was a first-year lecture in medical school that first sparked her interest in hematology and, more specifically, leukemia research. “Before I appreciated the basic science research, but it didn’t hit me strong enough to give me the conviction that it was something I wanted to participate in,” Cho recalls, “but a particular lecture in leukemia really spoke to me how valuable basic science research was. That’s what brought me to leukemia research.”

The award supports her work with Dr. Aaron Schimmer at Princess Margaret Hospital.  The Schimmer lab focuses on combatting Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), a rare type of blood cancer characterized by rapid growth of cancer cells. People diagnosed with AML face a grim future: the survival rate is around 22 per cent, one of the lowest amongst cancers. “Acute Myeloid Leukemia is an aggressive hematologic malignancy in which relapse rates remain higher than 50 per cent, particularly in elderly patients over 60 years of age,” explains Cho. “The Schimmer lab seeks to identify and target biological vulnerabilities in AML and AML stem cells, thereby highlighting new therapeutic strategies for
this disease.”

Thus far, the lab has discovered that death of AML cells can be induced by disrupting the cells’ lysosomes. The disturbance of the lysosomes and subsequent eradication of cancer cells can be achieved by using mefloquine, an anti-malarial drug, to knock down the lysosomal membrane proteins, LAMP1 and LAMP2. This work has recently been published and featured on the cover of the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI). The next step will be to discover alternative therapeutic strategies that can optimize AML treatments.

Cho recognizes that working alongside hematologists and potentially seeing their research applied to help leukemia patients are  unique opportunities: “I’m grateful to have found this opportunity,”  she says, “seeing how research gets applied to patients is such a valuable experience.”