Linda Barber is a Senior Lecturer in Leukaemia Immunology at the Division of Cancer Studies, King’s College London.  She trained as a transplant immunologist, obtaining a PhD (1991) at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London and undertaking post-doctoral studies at Stanford University School of Medicine, California USA.  She has been a Senior Research Scientist at the Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research in Oxford and subsequently at the Anthony Nolan Research Institute, Royal Free Hospital in London before moving to King’s in 2006.  Her research group studies the immunology of leukaemia, with a focus on improving the effectiveness of treatments such as haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. 

Academic activities

• Supervision of MSc and PhD laboratory-based students
• Undergraduate teaching topics: Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation, and Research Skills in Immunology

Immune dysfunction in leukaemia; haematopoieitic stem cell transplantation; graft versus host disease; graft versus leukaemia.

The Leukaemia Immunology Research Group, led by Linda Barber, studies immune dysfunction in leukaemia and recovery of the immune system after allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation to treat disease.

Our studies focus on Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), a myeloid lineage blood cancer that is aggressive and the most common acute leukaemia in adults. Chemotherapy successfully induces remission, but disease almost inevitably relapses. Allogeneic-haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is a curative treatment for AML, but 50% of patients relapse after treatment.

T-cell mediated immunity can play a key role in the elimination of leukaemic cells and prevent relapse.  However, our studies are revealing that the functional competence of T cells in patients with AML is compromised due both to immune dysregulation caused by disease and the treatments given. We are therefore developing novel immunotherapeutic strategies for use during disease remission to prevent relapse that will correct the immune deficiencies we have identified.  Pre-clinical studies are in progress involving adoptive T-cell transfer combined with vaccination to stimulate anti-leukaemia immunity.

Key to the work is our collaboration with the clinical haematology team at King’s College Hospital, with whom we undertake studies using patient samples and translate our findings back to the clinic so that new and improved treatments can be developed.  

Group Members (in alphabetical order)

• Monera AL Rukhayes (PhD student)
• Annie Etuk (Ph.D student)
• Pilar Perez-Abellan (Biomedical Scientist)
• David Tomaz (Research Associate)
• Philip Wu (PhD student)

Collaborators

At King’s College London

• Professor Farzin Farzaneh
• Dr Andrea Pepper
• Dr John Maher
• Professor Giovanna Lombardi

External

• Dr Victoria Potter (King’s College Hospital)
• Dr Pramila Krishnamurthy (Addenbrooke’s Hospital Cambridge)
• Dr Ricardo Pinto (Hematology Department, Hospital S. João, Porto, Portugal)
• Dr Yolanda Calle-Patino (University of Roehampton)