Prizes

The UK CLL Forum offers two prizes per annum, both to celebrate research and academic achievement with a particular focus on junior scientific and clinical members of the Forum.

The Hamblin Prize

At our Scientific Meeting in March we award the Hamblin prize, established in 2008 in honour of Professor Terry Hamblin, the founder of the UK CLL Forum. Given his major contributions to the CLL literature, both as author and editor, it was felt that this prize should be awarded for the best CLL-related publication from a UK-based group in the previous year.

Therefore, we ask for applications in the January of each year that are all considered by the UK CLL Forum Executive Committee prior to the Scientific Meeting. The winner is selected by the Committee and invited to present their paper at the meeting.

For any queries, please contact Professor Ulf Klein (u.p.klein@leeds.ac.uk) or Dr Alan Ramsay (alan.ramsay@kcl.ac.uk), Joint Scientific Secretaries to the UK CLL Forum.

The year’s winner

2023 – Kate Ridout; Robbe P, Ridout KE, Vavoulis DV, Dréau H, Kinnersley B, Denny N, Chubb D, Appleby N, Cutts A, Cornish AJ, Lopez-Pascua L, Clifford R, Burns A, Stamatopoulos B, Cabes M, Alsolami R, Antoniou P, Oates M, Cavalieri D; Genomics England Research Consortium; CLL pilot consortium; Gibson J, Prabhu AV, Schwessinger R, Jennings D, James T, Maheswari U, Duran-Ferrer M, Carninci P, Knight SJL, Månsson R, Hughes J, Davies J, Ross M, Bentley D, Strefford JC, Devereux S, Pettitt AR, Hillmen P, Caulfield MJ, Houlston RS, Martín-Subero JI, Schuh A. Whole-genome sequencing of chronic lymphocytic leukemia identifies subgroups with distinct biological and clinical features. Nat Genet. 2022 Nov;54(11):1675-1689.

Previous winners

2008 – Buggins AG, Patten PE, Richards J, Thomas NS, Mufti GJ, Devereux S.

Tumor-derived IL-6 may contribute to the immunological defect in CLL. Leukemia. 2008 May;22(5):1084-7. Epub 2007 Nov 1

2009 – Johnson GG, Sherrington PD, Carter A, Lin K, Liloglou T, Field JK, Pettitt AR. A novel type of p53 pathway dysfunction in chronic lymphocytic leukemia resulting from twointeracting single nucleotide polymorphisms within the p21 gene. Cancer Res. 2009 Jun 15;69(12):5210-7. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-09-0627. Epub 2009 Jun 2.

2012 – Krysov S, Dias S, Paterson A, Mockridge CI, Potter KN, Smith KA, Ashton-Key M, Stevenson FK, Packham G. Surface IgM stimulation induces MEK1/2–dependent MYC expression in chronic lymphocyticleukemia cells. Blood. 2012 Jan 5;119(1):170-9. doi: 10.1182/blood-2011-07-370403. Epub 2011 Nov 15.

2013 – Pettitt AR, Jackson R, Carruthers S, Dodd J, Dodd S, Oates M, Johnson GG, Schuh A, Matutes E, Dearden CE, Catovsky D, Radford JA, Bloor A, Follows GA, Devereux S, Kruger A, Blundell J, Agrawal S, Allsup D, Proctor S, Heartin E, Oscier D, Hamblin TJ, Rawstron A, Hillmen P. Alemtuzumab in combination with methylprednisolone is a highly effective induction regimenfor patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and deletion of TP53: final results of the national cancer research institute CLL206 trial. J Clin Oncol. 2012 May 10;30(14):1647-55. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2011.35.9695. Epub 2012 Apr 9

2014 – Clifford R, Louis T, Robbe P, Ackroyd S, Burns A, Timbs AT, Wright Colopy G, Dreau H, Sigaux F, Judde JG, Rotger M, Telenti A, Lin YL, Pasero P, Maelfait J, Titsias M, Cohen DR, Henderson SJ, Ross MT, Bentley D, Hillmen P, Pettitt A, Rehwinkel J, Knight SJ, Taylor JC, Crow YJ, Benkirane M, Schuh A. SAMHD1 is mutated recurrently in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and is involved in response to DNA damage. Blood. 2014 Feb 13;123(7):1021-31. doi: 10.1182/blood-2013-04-490847. Epub 2013 Dec 12

2015 – Riches JC, O’Donovan CJ, Kingdon SJ, McClanahan F, Clear AJ, Neuberg DS, Werner L, Croce CM, Ramsay AG, Rassenti LZ, Kipps TJ, Gribben JG. Trisomy 12 chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells exhibit upregulation of integrin signaling that is modulated by NOTCH1 mutations. Blood. 2014 Jun 26;123(26):4101-10. doi: 10.1182/blood-2014-01-552307. Epub 2014 May 14

2016 – Kwok M, Davies N, Agathanggelou A, Smith E, Oldreive C, Petermann E, Stewart G, Brown J, Lau A, Pratt G, Parry H, Taylor M, Moss P, Hillmen P, Stankovic T. ATR inhibition induces synthetic lethality and overcomes chemoresistance in TP53- or ATM-defective chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells. Blood. 2016 Feb 4;127(5):582-95. doi: 10.1182/blood-2015-05-644872. Epub 2015 Nov 12.

2017 – Stamatopoulos B, Timbs A, Bruce D, Smith T, Clifford R, Robbe P, Burns A, Vavoulis DV, Lopez L, Antoniou P, Mason J, Dreau H, Schuh A. Targeted deep sequencing reveals clinically relevant subclonal IgHV rearrangements in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Leukemia. 2017 Apr;31(4):837-845. doi: 10.1038/leu.2016.307. Epub 2016 Oct 31.

2018 – Agathanggelou A, Smith E, Davies NJ, Kwok M, Zlatanou A, Oldreive CE, Mao J, Da Costa D, Yadollahi S, Perry T, Kearns P, Skowronska A, Yates E, Parry H, Hillmen P, Reverdy C, Delansorne R, Paneesha S, Pratt G, Moss P, Taylor AMR, Stewart GS, Stankovic T. USP7 inhibition alters homologous recombination repair and targets CLL cells independentlyof ATM/p53 functional status. Blood. 2017 Jul 13;130(2):156-166. doi: 10.1182/blood-2016-12-758219. Epub 2017 May 11.

2019 – Mangolini M, Götte F, Moore A, Ammon T, Oelsner M, Lutzny-Geier G, Klein-Hitpass L, Williamson JC, Lehner PJ, Dürig J, Möllmann M, Rásó-Barnett L, Hughes K, Santoro A, Méndez-Ferrer S, Oostendorp RAJ, Zimber-Strobl U, Peschel C, Hodson DJ, Schmidt-Supprian M, Ringshausen I. Notch2 controls non-autonomous Wnt-signalling in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Nat Commun. 2018 Sep 21;9(1):3839. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06069-5.

2020- Kwok M, Oldreive C, Rawstron AC, Goel A, Papatzikas G, Jones RE, Drennan S, Agathanggelou A, Sharma-Oates A, Evans P, Smith E, Dalal S, Mao J, Hollows R, Gordon N, Hamada M, Davies NJ, Parry H, Beggs AD, Munir T, Moreton P, Paneesha S, Pratt G, Taylor AMR, Forconi F, Baird DM, Cazier JB, Moss P, Hillmen P, Stankovic T. Integrative analysis of spontaneous CLL regression highlights genetic and microenvironmental interdependency in CLL. Blood. 2020 Feb 6;135(6):411-428. doi: 10.1182/blood.2019001262.

2021 – Eugene Park, Jingyu Chen, Andrew Moore, Maurizio Mangolini, Antonella Santoro,Joseph R. Boyd, Hilde Schjerven, Veronika Ecker, Maike Buchner, James C. Williamson, Paul J. Lehner, Luca Gasparoli, Owen Williams, Johannes Bloehdorn, Stephan Stilgenbauer, Michael Leitges, Alexander Egle, Marc Schmidt-Supprian, Seth Frietze, Ingo Ringshausen – Stromal cell protein kinase C- β inhibition enhances chemosensitivity in B cell malignancies and overcomes drug resistance Park et al., Sci. Transl. Med. 12, eaax9340 (2020) 15 January 2020.

2022 – Emma Kennedy, Eve Coulter, Emma Halliwell, Nuria Profitos-Peleja, Elisabeth Walsby, Barnaby Clark, Elizabeth H Phillips, Thomas A Burley, Simon Mitchell, Stephen Devereux, Christopher D Fegan, Christopher I Jones, Rosalynd Johnston, Tim Chevassut, Ralph Schulz, Martina Seiffert, Angelo Agathanggelou, Ceri Oldreive, Nicholas Davies, Tatjana Stankovic, Triantafillos Liloglou, Chris Pepper, Andrea G S Pepper. TLR9 expression in chronic lymphocytic leukemia identifies a promigratory subpopulation and novel therapeutic target. Blood 2021 Jun 3;137(22):3064-3078.

 

The Catovsky Prize

At our Clinical Meeting in October we award the Catovsky prize, established in 2006 by the UK CLL Forum in recognition of the outstanding contribution that Professor Daniel Catovsky has made to the field of clinical and scientific CLL research.

In the September of each year, all non-tenured CLL researchers are invited to submit an abstract of their research work for consideration by the UK CLL Forum Executive committee. The highest scoring abstracts are selected for a 15-minute oral presentation, the remainder are invited to present their work as a poster. A panel then selects two winning applicants based on their oral and poster presentations.

For any queries, please contact Professor Jonathan Strefford (jcs@soton.ac.uk), the Scientific Secretary to the UK CLL Forum.

This year’s winners

2023 Winners – Best Oral Presentation: Jamie Lees, FOXO4 is required for the promotion of CLL growth and survival, University of Glasgow
Best Poster: Jodie Hay, Exploiting FOXO1 signalling as a therapeutic target in CLL, University of Glasgow

Previous winners

2006 -Dr Piers Patten, Leukaemia Research Fund Clinical Fellow, Kings College Hospital, LONDON.

2007 – Dr Fiona Bennett, HMDS, Leeds

2008 -Dr Mieke Vogler, MRC Toxicology Unit, Leicester University

2010 -Dr Victoria Weston, CRUK School of Cancer Sciences, Birmingham University

2011 – Dr Sean Lim, MRC Clinical Research Fellow, Cancer Sciences Unit, Southampton School of Medicine

2012 – Emilio Cosimo, Institue of Cancer Studies, College of Medicine, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow.

2013 – Best Oral Presentation. Elizabeth WalsbyUniversity of Cardiff for her paper ‘Migration of primary CLL cells across the vascular endothelium modeled and characterised in a novel in vitro circulation system’.

2013 – Best Poster Presentation Elinor Chapman from the Department of Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine, Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool for her poster entitled ‘The AKT inhibitor AZD5363 inhibits the proliferation of chronic lymohocytic leukaemia cells and revers chemo-resistance induced by stromal interactions’

2014 – Best Oral Presentation, Dr Matthew Blunt Cancer Sciences Unit University of Southampton for his paper ‘The PI3K/mTOR inhibitor PF-04691502 induces apoptosis and inhibits microenvironmental signaling in CLL and the Eµ-TCL1 mouse model.’

2015 – Best Oral Presentation, Dr Matthew Carter, Cancer Sciences Unit, University of Southampton School of Medicine. dPI3-Kinhibition elicits anti-leukaemic effects through the induction of Bim-dependent apoptosis

2015 – Best Poster Presentation, Dr Basile Stamatopoulos, John Radcliffe/University of Oxford. Immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene mutation status by next-generation deep sequencing in chronic lymphocytic leukemia: prognostic significance of multiple subclones and improvement of previous classification

2016 – Best Oral Presentation Mr Stuart Blakemore, University of Southampton, Overcoming Mcl-1-mediated resistance in CLL via selective inhibition with UMI-77 in combination with ABT-199

2016 – Best Poster Presentation Dr Beatriz Valle Argos, University of Southampton, The inositol lipid phosphatase SHIP1 is recruited to surface IgM following stimulation to suppress B-cell receptor mediated signalling responses in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia cells

2017 – Best Oral Presentation – Dr Harindra Amarasinghe – University of Southampton – The memory-like DNA methylation signature is an independent prognostic factor in treatment-naïve chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: data from the UK CLL4, ARCTIC and ADMIRE trials

2017 – Best Poster Presentation – Miss Sarah Wilmore – University of Southampton – Investigating effects of eIF4A inhibitors silvestrol and rocaglamide on B-cell receptor-induced MYC expression in primary human chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) cells

2019 – Best Oral Presentation – Dr Robin Sanderson – Barts Cancer Institute – Exhausted CLL T Cells Mediated By PD1 Expression an Important Mechanism for CD19 CAREfficacy in CLL in the Adoptive Transfer TCL1 Mouse Model

2019 – Best Poster Presentation – Emma Kennedy – Evidence for the role of TLR9 in migration of CLL cells

2020 – Despoina Papazoglou – King’s College London – T cell bispecific antibody combination immunotherapy for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL)

2021 – Jodie Hay – PKCb drives leukemogenesis in a poor prognostic CLL mouse model and promotes constitutive BCR-mediated signaling

2022 – Jack Fisher – Selective inhibition of nuclear export sensitises CLL cells to NK cell mediated lysis, University of Southampton