The project part leader, Veronika Sexl, is a well-known expert in the field of hematology and cancer research. Her area of expertise are various mouse models examining the evolution and drug resistance of Ph+ CML and Ph+ ALL. In addition, she established a model suitable for the expansion of long-term in vivo repopulating murine leukemic SC in her lab. Veronika is head of the Institute of Pharmacology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vienna, Austria). She runs a highly productiveresearch group focusing on signal transduction pathways and drug resistance in hematopoietic neoplasms in her institute. In the current project, her group focused on Ph+ CML and various key cell cycle regulators such as CDK6.
The aims of project #06 were to study the impact of cdk6 on disease initiation and maintenance in Jak2V617F+ and Calrdel52+ MPN mouse models, to determine CDK6-dependent genes in MPN-initiating HSPC and LSC on a genome-wide level and to study CDK6 as a potential therapeutic target in primary cells of patients suffering from various MPN, including patients with del7q.