Tessa Holyoake

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Tessa Laurie Holyoake
chronic myeloid leukaemia
Medical career
InstitutionsUniversity of Glasgow, Terry Fox Laboratory
Sub-specialtiesoncology
Researchchronic myeloid leukaemia

Tessa Laurie Holyoake,

chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), and discovered its stem cell. She was considered a world leading expert in leukaemia research.[1]

Early life and education

Tessa Holyoake was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on 17 March 1963. She attended Albyn School.[2] She studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, and graduated in 1985.[3] She completed her PhD at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow.[4]

Career and research

After specialising in oncology, she worked from 1992 to 1996 as a clinical research fellow at the

Cancer Research Campaign's laboratories in Glasgow. From 1996 to 1998, she worked at Terry Fox Laboratory in Vancouver and discovered that primitive stem cells in CML existed in a quiescent state, and therefore they did not respond to cell cycle-active agents like imatinib.[5]

In 1999, she returned to

farnesyl transferase inhibitor was better at eradicating CML stem cells, which was published in 2007.[6]

She developed a drug treatment to target the abnormal CML stem cell, to go beyond the current lifelong tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment.

Awards and honours

Personal life

Tessa Holyoake was married to Andy, a general practitioner; they had no children. She enjoyed mountain biking, hill walking, and kayaking, and fundraised for the Leukaemia Research Centre by cycling and climbing Munros.[7]

In addition to her research work, she continued a clinical practice as a consultant at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre in Glasgow.[11]

On 31 August 2017, she died of metastatic breast cancer near Loch Tummel, Perthshire. The disease had been diagnosed in 2016.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "University of Glasgow - MyGlasgow - MyGlasgow News - Professor Tessa Holyoake". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  2. S2CID 220093089
    .
  3. ^
    doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32557-6
    .
  4. ^ a b Bockwinkel, Stefanie. "iCMLf - The 2017 Rowley Prize is awarded to Professor Tessa Holyoake". www.cml-foundation.org. Retrieved 30 December 2017. The Rowley Prize is awarded each year by the International CML Foundation to celebrate people who have made outstanding lifetime contributions to the understanding of the biology of CML. Professor Holyoake receives the prize in recognition of her ground breaking work understanding and targeting CML stem cells.
  5. PMID 10477735.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  6. PMID 18156496.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  7. ^ a b "'A brilliant lady in every sense of the word' tributes paid to ground breaking University of Glasgow professor". Glasgow live. 7 September 2017.
  8. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.exphem.2017.09.005
    .
  9. ^ "2015 Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun Awards". Saltire Society. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  10. ^ "Major Award for Glasgow Cancer Specialist". Scottish Cancer Foundation. 26 November 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  11. ^ "Obituary: Tessa Holyoake". The Times. 11 September 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2020. Most notably, she was the first to identify the existence of cancer stem cells in CML in 1999, during her research fellowship in Vancouver. Later, she demonstrated the resistance of these stem cells to CML-specific therapies such as imatinib. Holyoake made a world-leading contribution to her field by identifying key CML stem cell survival pathways that can be manipulated to develop potential new treatments.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tessa_Holyoake&oldid=1217699804"