A Bradford doctor has won a research award from the UK's leading blood cancer charity.

Dr Waseem Qasim, 33, a paediatrician originally from Allerton and a former pupil of Bradford Grammar School, has won the Leukaemia Research Fund Clinician Scientist Award, which will enable him to carry out pioneering research into bone marrow transplantation.

Over the next five years the charity will commit £340,000 to his research programme, which aims to save lives by finding ways to make bone marrow transplants more successful.

Dr Qasim will work alongside leukaemia experts at the Institute of Child Health at University College, London, and Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he is based.

"This award means I can continue my clinical training while using laboratory time to carry out research that will directly benefit my patients," he said.

"I am delighted that LRF has given me this unique opportunity to work with some of the UK's leading leukaemia experts."

Dr Qasim is developing new ways to overcome a post-transplant complication called graft-versus host disease (GvHD) which occurs when the immune cells from the donor recognise the patient's cells as foreign and attack them.

This can be very serious, affecting the liver and gut, and can even be life-threatening.

"Special white blood cells from the donor called T-cells have the ability to kill cancer cells but they also attack the patient's healthy cells," said Dr Qasim.

"We are looking to manipulate these T-cells to maximise their cancer killing ability but to prevent them damaging the patient."

Dr David Grant, LRF scientific director, said: "Thousands of patients with leukaemia and other forms of blood cancer need a bone marrow transplant each year. For many a transplant is their only hope of survival."

Despite improvements, many people still died after a bone marrow transplant because of infections or because the patient's body rejected the donor cells.

"Research like this will move us towards an even higher success rate for bone marrow transplants," he said.