Professor John Gribben receives prestigious José Carreras award

The José Carreras Award honours leaders in haematological research. Each year, the European Hematology Association (EHA) Board selects an established and active investigator who has made an important lifetime contribution to haematology. The winner is invited to receive their award and deliver a lecture at the Opening Ceremony of the EHA’s Annual Congress, which this year took place on 13 June in Madrid, Spain. Professor Gribben presented a lecture entitled: “The impact of hematologic malignancies on the host immune system”.

Professor Gribben’s research focuses on leukaemia, bone marrow transplantation and immunotherapy. His group investigates how cancer cells impair the function of the immune system to escape attack. He and his team identified that leukaemia and lymphoma cells disrupt the function of the molecule actin within T cells, interfering with these cells’ ability to communicate with other components of the immune system and launch an effective attack. They discovered that these defects could be reversed with the drug lenalidomide. Based on this work, Professor Gribben led a phase III trial that resulted in the approval of lenalidomide and rituximab (a second immunotherapy) for follicular lymphoma.