Associate Professor Charles de Bock

Associate Professor Charles (Charley) de Bock is a Group Leader at the Children's Cancer Institute, UNSW Sydney, where his team is dedicated to finding better, kinder treatments for children with blood cancer.  Charley's research focuses on T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL), one of the most aggressive cancers affecting children. While overall survival rates for childhood leukaemia have improved significantly, children with T-ALL still face an intensive and gruelling treatment journey. Current therapy relies on intensive chemotherapy that can cause serious long-term side effects. Unlike other forms of leukaemia, T-ALL also lacks the effective immune therapies that have transformed outcomes elsewhere,  making the need for better, more targeted treatments urgent.

Charley trained for six years at the prestigious VIB-KU Leuven Centre for Cancer Biology in Belgium, becoming an expert in the molecular biology of leukaemia and cutting-edge tools like CRISPR gene editing. He returned to Australia in 2019 to establish his own research team at the Children's Cancer Institute. His team uses sophisticated laboratory models to decode how gene mutations and altered transcriptional programs drive the growth and survival of leukaemia, with the ultimate goal of designing safer, more targeted therapies that spare children from the long-term toxic effects of intensive chemotherapy.