Speakers

Tom Milne received a PhD in 2005 that was co-supervised by Dr. Hugh Brock (University of British Columbia) and Dr. Jay Hess (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) working on the wild type function of the Mixed Lineage Leukaemia (MLL) gene, where he discovered that the MLL protein is a histone methyltransferase. Tom went on to do postdoctoral studies at The Rockefeller University (NY, USA) with Dr. C. David Allis where he found that MLL and the polymerase associated factor 1 (PAF1) proteins directly interact and cooperate in regulating gene targets in leukaemia. He then became a Group Leader in 2010 at the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit (MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK) an Associate Professor of Haematology in 2014, and a full Professor in 2022.  Current work in the Milne lab is to discover how epigenetic systems are leveraged in cancer to create pathogenic gene expression states and to use this basic knowledge to develop new targeted therapies. The main focus of the lab is on high-risk infant and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemias (ALLs), the most common form of paediatric cancer, for which relapse and refractory disease is largely untreatable. Tom is also a co-founder, shareholder and consultant for the spinout companies OxStem Oncology (2016-2021) and Dark Blue Therapeutics (2021 – present).