Sylvie Freeman DPhil, MBChB, MRCP, FRCPath

Professor Sylvie Freeman’s clinical interests are in the management of acute myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplasia and diagnostics of haematological malignancies. This with her background in myeloid research led to her laboratory translation research focus on predicting treatment resistance in these myeloid malignancies.

During Professor Freeman's clinical specialist haematology training at Oxford, she completed a MRC funded DPhil followed by a MRC Clinician Scientist award. She had a clinical attachment at UCL and finished her clinical training in Bristol before being appointed in 2000 as a clinical academic at Birmingham University and honorary consultant at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. She is a member of the NCRI AML working party, the European LeukemiaNet AMLMRD Working Group and more recently the Laboratory and Diagnostic subcommittee/ International Consortium on Acute Leukemia Committee (American Society of Hematology).

NCRI AML trials are in effect a national care plan for AML therapy within the NHS. Her laboratory work in the framework of a national NCRI clinical trials collaboration addresses a key question; whether relapse prediction in AML and myelodsyplasia could be improved by sensitive detection of leukemia-specific markers. She has developed and implemented immunophenotypic assays to evaluate and monitor AML during chemotherapy and allogeneic stem cell transplantation, recently extending this to novel assays tracking leukemic stem cell enriched populations with national /international collaborators. Under her leadership the Birmingham University Clinical Immunology Service has established an international reputation for flow cytometric AML monitoring, acting as the hub reference laboratory in the UK. Sylvie has a part time role at the WHIMM in Oxford that will build on joint expertise for developing AML monitoring assays. Collaborations with the molecular expertise at KCL, Cambridge and international colleagues are critical to optimise ‘fit for purpose’ precision assays that will best inform treatment of AML including for novel therapies.