Over 30 years of hard work have enabled Prof. de Hugues de Thé to turn acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) from one of the deadliest forms of leukaemia into the most curable one. His most recent ERC grant helped him investigate the process through which the treatment he helped develop — a combination of retinoic acid (RA) and arsenic — acts on tumour cells.
Prior to the project, Prof. de Thé and his team had already demonstrated how RA and arsenic directly bind PML/RARA — the driving oncoprotein in APL — and promote its degradation. With the STEMAPL (APL a model for oncogene-targeted leukaemia cure) project, they went a step further: they showed how this therapy-induced degradation allows for the re-assembly of distinct nuclear domains called PML nuclear bodies.
Further details: Retinoic acid/arsenic-based APL therapy now fully deciphered