Professor Rob Wynn – We Can Do More
In the latest episode of Cure Leukaemia’s Let’s Talk Blood Cancer: The Patients Podcast, host Adam Joyce sits down with Rob Wynn, a Consultant Paediatric Haematologist and Director of Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation at Manchester Children’s Hospital.
Why Haematology?
Growing up with his family in Liverpool, medicine was never the plan for Professor Wynn, “I wasn’t from a family of medics, it wasn’t until the first day of sixth form that I decided I wanted to do medicine.”
After studying at Cambridge and completing his medical training in London, Professor Wynn initially considered a career in psychiatry. However, during his medical training he developed a passion for haematology.
“I always liked haematology. It combined the science of medicine and the philosophy of medicine.”
Following time in adult medicine and paediatrics, he eventually specialised in paediatric haematology, a field he has now worked in for more than three decades.
The Development’s in Haematology
Since beginning his career in paediatric haematology, Professor Wynn has witnessed significant advances in the treatment of childhood blood cancers.
“We are lucky because we can be part of the change in medicine. It’s a different world to when I started.”
During his three decades working in this field, Professor Wynn has seen the survival rates for children battling blood cancer drastically improve, but there is still work to be done. “We treat lots of kids and we cure most of them, but most isn’t enough.”
Advances in targeted therapies, immunotherapies and transplantation have provided new options for children when traditional treatments are unsuccessful.
“Where chemotherapy fails, we have more options now.”
Treating Children
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding childhood leukaemia is how successful treatment can be.
“The majority of children are cured, our first responsibility when speaking to a family whose child has leukaemia is to give hope, and the truth”.
For Professor Wynn ‘a cure’ means much more than completing treatment. “A cure means they are alive and well, their disease is gone, and they can forget they ever even had leukaemia”.
When looking whether a patient has reached this long term goal of ‘a cure’, Professor Wynn urges parents to do the ‘school gates test’.
“You’re stood outside the school gates when your child is 13, they may have had leukaemia when they were 2. Can you tell that they had leukaemia as a child? Most of the time you can’t.”
Whilst children and their families go through all sorts of challenges throughout their treatment, “many pass the school gates test in the end, even if there are dark moments along the way.”
Advances in Transplantation
A major focus of Professor Wynn’s work is blood and bone marrow transplantation.
One area in particular is the use of Cord Blood Donations. Rather than collecting stem cells from a bone marrow donor, cord blood is taken from the placenta and umbilical cord following birth and stored for future use.
“The cord blood contains the cells that will make blood for the rest of that child’s life.”
Research has shown that cord blood transplants “seem to be better at curing leukaemia.”
Scientists are still working to understand why this is the case. However, Professor Wynn and his team have observed large numbers of immune cells appearing shortly after transplantation.
“In the first few hours after a cord blood transplant we see a lot of immune cells. These are cells which get rid of the cancer.” The effectiveness of transplantation is closely linked to the immune system, as “the reason transplants work is the new immune systems reject the cancer cells.”
The Motivation
Having spent his career caring for children with blood cancer, Professor Wynn’s motivation remains as strong as ever.
“I’ve seen kids where the treatments have worked, I’ve seen where the treatments are too toxic and I’ve seen where kids have relapsed. That’s the motivation.”
Looking ahead, he believes the next challenge is not only curing more children, but reducing the side effects associated with treatment, “that’s what The ATICUS Network is all about, to cure without toxicity and to cure everyone without side effects.”
Taking on the Tour 21
On top of all of his incredible work, Professor Wynn has also taken on challenges to raise fund for Cure Leukaemia. In 2023, he joined The Tour 21 team, riding the entire Tour de France route one week before the professionals.
On day two of the twenty-one day challenge, disaster struck when he went over his handlebars and broke his elbow.
Despite the injury, Rob continued cycling and completed the remaining 18 days of the challenge, “I wasn’t going to give up”.