Mel Greaves

Mel Greaves is a Professor of Cell Biology and Chairman of the Section of Haemato-Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research, London. He trained in zoology and immunology at UCL and Stockholm. His work on the molecular genetics of childhood leukaemia has uncovered the pre-natal origin of this disease and shed light on its possible causes.

Professor Greaves has worked at the ICR since 1984, when he joined to establish the UK’s first Leukaemia Research Fund Centre (for Cell and Molecular Biology). Earlier in his career, Professor Greaves pioneered immunological methods to differentiate between types of leukaemia, which improved understanding of the disease and allowed treatments to be better tailored to patients.

Professor Greaves and his team made a major discovery at the ICR in the 1990s when studies on identical twins and neonatal blood spots identified mutations that initiated leukaemia before birth. He has been trying to work out what triggers the clinical emergence of leukaemia when children are between two and five years old, and has accumulated evidence that incriminates an abnormal immune response to infection and the cytokine molecule TGF beta.

Professor Greaves says a major goal is to confirm the role that common childhood infections play in the development of leukaemia. He is looking for more evidence that children exposed to infections as babies develop a normal immune response and receive some protection against leukaemia, while children who are not exposed until later in life – generally those from affluent societies - are at higher risk. Inherited susceptibility also plays a role, and Professor Greaves is studying this in collaboration with the ICR’s Section of Genetics. Evolutionary principles provide a key framework for these studies.

Professor Greaves has a broad educational background, initially training in zoology and immunology in the sixties at University College in London and Stockholm. He was drawn into cancer research in the mid-1970s when, as a young father, he visited a cancer ward at a London hospital and met children stricken with leukaemia. At the time, little was known about the disease, and Professor Greaves began a lifelong study – initially at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute) - into its biology in the hope of improving patient diagnosis, treatment options and ultimately prevention.