David B. Sykes

Biography

Dr. Sykes was awarded the first TAP to accelerate his pursuit of therapeutic options for AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) combining the clinical and screening expertise of scientists from the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute with IntelliCyt’s iQue Screener. His TAP award follows earlier work using High Throughput Flow for screening compound libraries at the University of New Mexico in collaboration with Dr. Larry Sklar.

Research Interest

About Dr. Syke’s focus on Acute Myeloid Leukemia to About Dr. Sykes’ focus on Acute Myeloid Leukemia Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a devastating disease with a 5-year survival rate of only 25%. One exception has been the discovery of drugs which trigger cellular differentiation in the 10% of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. Differentiation therapies are well tolerated and extremely effective, leading to 5-year survival rates approaching 80% in this small subset of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. Unfortunately differentiation therapy is currently not available for the remaining 90% of patients with AML. I am interested in understanding what establishes differentiation in acute myeloid leukemia. Furthermore, I am interested in identifying new compounds which can modulate differentiation as candidates for treating human leukemia.