Professor Jean-Pierre Levesque is a Principal Research Fellow and the joint Head of the Cancer Biology and Care Program at Mater Research, a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow (NHMRC) and is also an Honorary Professor in the School of Medicine, the University of Queensland. Jean-Pierre leads the Stem Cell Biology Research Group at Mater with a team of six researchers.
Jean-Pierre has authored over 100 scientific publications, with a current research focus in the biology of haematopoietic stem cells, the regulation of haematopoiesis and bone formation. He holds four patents and has attracted more than $8 million in competitive grants as the primary or secondary investigator (CIA and CIB).
Jean-Pierre’s lab, having identified many of the pathways by which hematopoietic stem cell niches are dynamically regulated and how they control the behaviour and fate of normal stem cells, are now studying how abnormal niches promote development of haematological neoplasms and their resistance to treatment and cause anaemia. This work has led to the introduction of Plerixafor (an immunoregulator) to salvage haematopoietic stem cell mobilisation for autologous transplantation in multiple myeloma and lymphoma patients. Jean-Pierre’s lab is also interested in discovering new therapeutic approaches in order to change survival rates in patients. A highlight of this research is the discovery of two proteins that make leukaemia stem cells resistant to chemotherapy in the bone marrow and the discovery that targeting these proteins can sensitise leukaemia stem cells to chemotherapy in pre-clinical models of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). This has led to successful clinical trials in the USA and Australia showing higher rates of remission in AML patients. His research has recently broadened to understand the mechanisms of pathological neurologic bone formation that develops in victims of spinal cord and traumatic brain injury.
Jean-Pierre works closely with clinicians, at Mater and other hospitals, to translate his discoveries into clinical practice and in 2011 was published in Blood, the top haematology journal, guidelines to rescue hematopoietic stem cell mobilisation for autologous transplantation patients.
Jean-Pierre is heavily involved in national and international peer review (including the NHMRC) and has served on the Editorial Boards of two international journals, and is currently an Editor of an international haematology journal.
‘I undertook a career in medical research because I was fascinated by the complex biology of the human being. I focused on understanding how blood cells are made and why it goes wrong in leukaemia because blood cancers were a dreadful disease with poor outcomes and invasive treatments when I was studying. Over the years, I have had immense satisfaction to make discoveries that are used clinically to make haematopoietic stem cell transplants easier and improve patient outcomes.’