Dr Arthur Zelent

Transcriptional Controls in Leukaemia Team

Collectively, haematological malignancies account for approximately 8% of all cancers with a considerably higher (>3 fold) proportion of childhood cancers (ref1). In the UK, 600 children and 24,000 adults are diagnosed with a haematological cancer each year. During the past 20 years, the overall incidence of haematological cancers in the Western world has increased, primarily due to the increase in Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) and Acute Myloid Leukaemia (AML) in adults (ref2). 

Despite the remarkable advances in the treatment of haematological cancers over the past few decades, treatment failure, relapse and mortality rates, particularly in adults and specific subtypes of paediatric leukaemias (those with MLL rearrangements, for example), remain unacceptably high. It is reasonable to predict that cure rates will not improve significantly unless alternative treatment modalities to conventional radiotherapy/chemotherapy are developed.

The goal of our research is focused on the development of better approaches to cancer treatment through elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying transcriptional deregulation and pathogenesis of leukaemia.

Arthur Zelent received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Rutgers University, New Jersey (USA), and after entering the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Biomedical Sciences Program in 1983, he joined the laboratory of Dr George Acs in the Department of Biochemistry. His thesis work involved studying transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms that regulate hepatitis B virus gene expression.

During his graduate studies he received the American Liver Foundation Student Research Fellowship Award and the Phi Beta Kappa of New York Scholarship Award, and was awarded a PhD degree in February 1987. He then joined the laboratory of Professor Pierre Chambon in Strasbourg for a three-year post-doctoral fellowship.  His major scientific contributions during that time were the discoveries of the retinoic acid receptor (RAR)-gamma gene and various RAR isoforms.  

In January 1991, he came back to New York City to join the Division of Hemato-Oncology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor, and was awarded the Charles H Revson Fellowship in Biomedical Research. His appointment in New York marked the beginning of a long-standing relationship with Professors Samuel Waxman and Zhu Chen (Currently the Minister of Public Health in China). Working together in 1991, they discovered and characterised the t(11;17) translocation in a variant and therapy resistant case of acute promyelocytic leukaemia.

In January 1992, Arthur Zelent moved to the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London, where he currently holds a Non-Time Limited/Career Faculty appointment and is a Reader in Biochemistry of the University of London. Since joining the ICR, the major scientific contributions from Arthur Zelent’s laboratory have included the elucidation of the roles that the nuclear receptor co-repressors and histone deacetylases play in the molecular pathogenesis of human leukaemia, and the discovery of the (Leukaemia/Lymphoma Related Factor (LRF) and histone deacetylase 9 (HDAC9) genes.

Currently, his laboratory continues to investigate genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie deregulation of gene expression, and is particularly focusing on retinoic acid signalling in human acute leukaemia. Arthur Zelent’s laboratory is also studying the role of histone modifying enzymes in haematological malignancies. The overall goal of the work in his laboratory is to contribute towards the improvement of the anti-cancer therapy through basic studies of carcinogenesis.

Arthur Zelent has also been a member of a number of editorial and scientific advisory boards including APECHO Program and the EPITRON Consortium.