Victoria Ling

My research aims to better understand the biology of blood cancers and how this relates to prognosis, response to therapies and how it interacts with clinical factors, such as frailty. The outcomes will be better selection of therapies tailored to the patient and disease characteristics and new therapies or therapeutic approaches through pre-clinical studies and clinical trials, with particular focus on high-risk, vulnerable groups, including frail patients who are not fit for intensive therapies. To achieve this, I lead a collaborative research program exploring physical and psychosocial outcomes in older AML patients, underpinned by understanding frailty trajectories of patients according to treatment received, which is part of the Australian Frailty Network (Prof. Ruth Hubbard, UQ). This is a continuing program of research with nursing and medical early career researchers under my supervision. I am also national principal investigator of a multi-site, currently recruiting Phase II randomised clinical trial investigating a novel immunotherapeutic with oral azacitidine vs oral azacitidine alone (standard of care) in patients with AML. The trial is co-sponsored by ALLG and Mendus (biotechnology company based in the Netherlands). I continue to be involved in pre-clinical research, supporting wet-lab researchers at QIMR Berghofer and TRI.