aSCIENTISTS at Salisbury District Hospital are to offer fresh hope to people with rare forms of leukaemia after being awarded a £1.1 million grant by a national charity this week.

The money from the Leukaemia Research Fund will be used by the hospital's Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratory to pioneer research into a sub-type of chronic myeloid leukaemia - a cancer of the blood diagnosed in 750 people in the UK each year.

By homing in on subtle differences in the blood cancer cells that distinguish these forms from the more common types of chronic myeloid leukaemia, the unit hopes to identify which drugs could be used to treat these diseases.

Professor Nick Cross, director of the Wessex Regional Genetics Laboratory, said: "We are particularly interested in a family of leukaemias called chronic myeloid leukaemias, which occur when something goes wrong with the genes inside the blood cells.

"Disruption can lead to cells growing and dividing when they shouldn't - the underlying problem of leukaemia.

"What we are trying to do is to identify which genes go wrong in this group of diseases.

"We know that if we can identify what the genes are we can not only understand them better, but also have very good targets for treatment."

Scientists already know much more about the genetic errors that cause the more common forms of chronic myeloid leukaemia.

And recent progress has resulted in the development of a new drug, Imatinib mesylate (Glivec), which targets one of these errors and has now become standard treatment.

Prof Cross and his team, who are part of the University of Southampton's School of Medicine, aim to identify similar genetic errors that could help create new drugs to treat the rarer forms.

"In the more common varieties of chronic myeloid leuk-aemia we have a very specific genetic abnormality which we can target," said Prof Cross.

"We want to be able to extend this type of treatment to other patients and in order to do that we have to identify which genes in these patients are becoming abnormal.

"Once we have done that these abnormalities are now very good targets to hit with specific drugs and that is where we hope to be going over the next five years."

Dr David Grant, from the Leukaemia Research Fund, added: "This is a very important study because it will provide more detailed information about rarer forms of leukaemia that up until now have been difficult to treat.

"If we can develop innovative drug treatments for these forms of leukaemia, then we will be able to cure many more patients."