Rate My Professor Laurence Cheung

Associate Professor Laurence Cheung holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy with First Class Honours and a Master of Business Administration from Curtin University, as well as a PhD completed in 2014 at The Kids Research Institute Australia in the field of haematopoiesis and paediatric leukaemia. A registered pharmacist, he began his academic career as a Lecturer in the School of Pharmacy at Curtin University from November 2017 to November 2019. Since December 2019, he has served as Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in the Curtin Medical School within the Faculty of Health Sciences. In parallel, Cheung is Co-Head of the Leukaemia Translational Research Laboratory at The Kids Research Institute Australia and Governance Pharmacist at Perth Children’s Hospital. He contributes to university governance as a research integrity advisor and has been recognized for teaching excellence and innovation.

Cheung's research centers on the bone marrow microenvironment in childhood leukaemia, with emphasis on high-risk subtypes including KMT2A-rearranged infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, Down syndrome-associated leukaemia, and mechanisms of therapy resistance. His investigations explore age-dependent drug targets, preclinical patient-derived models, novel inhibitors such as NAMPT inhibitor OT-82 combined with venetoclax, menin inhibitors, sclerostin inhibition for bone protection, and the role of osteoclasts in leukaemia progression and immune regulation. He has published over 66 peer-reviewed articles, including recent works such as 'Blinatumomab limits humoral antibody response despite boosting the influenza vaccine schedule in children with B-ALL' (Blood Advances, 2026), 'Targeting nicotinamide metabolism with NAMPT-inhibitor OT-82 potentiates venetoclax in preclinical models of pediatric and adult acute myeloid leukemia' (Cancer Research, 2026), 'Pharmacological inhibition of sclerostin protects bone from B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia-mediated destruction' (HemaSphere, 2026), 'Menin inhibitors display differential in vitro sensitivity in KMT2A-rearranged infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia' (Leukemia & Lymphoma, 2026), and 'Perspectives on the origin and therapeutic opportunities in Down syndrome-associated leukemia' (Cancer and Metastasis Reviews, 2025). Cheung has attracted over $8.7 million in competitive research funding, including $591,277 from the WA Child Research Fund for the CHILD BMM project aimed at combating high-risk childhood leukaemia through microenvironment dissection (2024/25), and support from the Channel 7 Telethon Trust.