Kotecha group, Perth: the infant KMT2A-rearranged laboratory this graph had cited once
also called Rishi Kotecha · Telethon Kids Cancer Centre · Perth infant leukaemia group · Cheung Malinge Perth
A research group in Perth, Australia publishes more preclinical work on infant KMT2A-rearranged leukaemia than almost anyone, and until this cycle this project had cited it essentially not at all. Reading it turned up two studies the graph had written off as unreadable and a third whose title contradicts an assumption running through the whole project.
The same thing, for a scientist
Rishi S. Kotecha's group (Perth, with Laurence C. Cheung, Jacqueline Oommen and Sebastien Malinge among co-authors) is a principal source of preclinical infant KMT2A-rearranged ALL data and an Interfant/ANZCHOG clinical participant. A PubMed author search on 2026-09-19 returned **101 records for Kotecha RS 2020-2026**, of which **24** also carry infant, KMT2A or MLL in title or abstract [E1]. The project's `ana-literature-recall` analysis had flagged this group as having roughly one citation anywhere in the graph; this beat confirms the under-reading and closes part of it. Three specific results. (1) The BCL-2/MCL1 co-inhibition paper, held in `concept-known-but-unreadable-literature`, is **fully readable** via Europe PMC full text and is now recorded in `target-mcl1-with-bcl2-and-dexamethasone-infant-kmt2a-all` [E2]. (2) The osteoclast paper, also held as unreadable, is **fully readable** and is recorded with its scope limits in `target-osteoclast-inhibition-zoledronic-acid-high-risk-b-all` [E3]. (3) The menin-inhibitor differential-sensitivity paper remains **unreadable by every route tried**, and its title alone is enough to put a structural caveat on this project's class-level reasoning [E4]. The group also co-authors the ANZCHOG infant late-effects cohort, which supplied this beat's best infant-specific presenting-feature table [E5], and is on the Interfant blinatumomab reports [E6].
What was read this cycle, and what was not
Read in full and used:
| PMID | What it is | Where it went |
|---|---|---|
| 42246204 | BCL-2 + MCL1 co-inhibition with dexamethasone, infant KMT2A-r PDX | target-mcl1-with-bcl2-and-dexamethasone-infant-kmt2a-all |
| 40016188 | Osteoclast targeting with zoledronic acid in high-risk B-ALL | target-osteoclast-inhibition-zoledronic-acid-high-risk-b-all |
| 37752126 | ANZCHOG 119-infant cohort and late effects | concept-anzchog-infant-all-cohort-presenting-features, risk-late-effects-burden-in-infant-all-survivors |
| 41505662 | Blinatumomab long-term outcome, toxicity, pharmacokinetics | risk-late-effects-burden-in-infant-all-survivors |
| 42496646 | Immunoglobulin depletion and recovery after blinatumomab | same |
Enumerated and deliberately not pursued this cycle - these are preclinical therapeutics and belong to another beat, recorded here so the next cycle does not rediscover them as unknowns:
| PMID | Title, short | Why deferred |
|---|---|---|
| 36380143 | azacitidine + venetoclax, infant KMT2A-r | therapeutics beat; directly relevant to the venetoclax arm of NCT06317662 |
| 39941894 | dactinomycin, infant KMT2A-r | therapeutics beat |
| 33937032 | carfilzomib, infant KMT2A-r | therapeutics beat |
| 33837299 | auranofin, high-risk paediatric ALL | not infant-specific |
| 35677155 | CBL0137 + panobinostat, KMT2A-r | therapeutics beat |
| 39985426 | polyamine depletion in acute leukaemia | not infant-specific |
| 42038742 | microRNA signature in infant t(4;11) KMT2A::AFF1 | non-coding beat |
| 34706236 | fetal origin of MLL-AF4 and fatty acid requirements | genesis/origins beat |
What would change the deferral: any of them reporting a clinical presenting feature, a supportive-care outcome or an infant toxicity, which none appears to from its title.
A discrepancy with this beat's own dispatch brief
The brief said this group has 69 papers in the 2020-2026 window. A direct PubMed author query run on 2026-09-19 returns 101 for Kotecha RS[au] AND 2020:2026[dp] 1. The difference is not important for the conclusion - the group is heavily published and was barely cited - but it is recorded because the brief's figure and the measured figure differ by roughly half again, and an author-name query has its own precision problem: Kotecha RS[au] may collect more than one person and was not disambiguated here. The honest number is 101 records under that query string, with the caveat that author-name queries over-collect.
Partnering angle
The Perth panel of infant KMT2A-rearranged cell lines and PDX models (PER-485, PER-703, PER-494 appear in the adjacent literature, alongside KOPN-8) is the most directly relevant preclinical resource to this project's central question, because it is infant-derived and lymphoid rather than the myeloid lines on which most menin-inhibitor work has been done. The single highest-value collaboration this beat can identify is a matched cross-agent menin inhibitor panel on those models - which is, on the title evidence, close to what PMID 41711432 already reports and nobody in this project can read.
| group | Rishi S. Kotecha, with Laurence C. Cheung, Jacqueline Oommen, Sebastien Malinge and colleagues |
|---|---|
| institution | Perth, Western Australia (Telethon Kids Cancer Centre / Perth Children's Hospital), with ANZCHOG and Interfant participation |
| focus | preclinical infant KMT2A-rearranged ALL: drug repurposing and combination screening, PDX models, bone-marrow niche; clinical infant ALL outcomes and late effects |
| partnering angle | a matched cross-agent menin inhibitor comparison on the group's infant KMT2A-rearranged cell lines and PDX models, with target-engagement readouts, is the single experiment that would most directly test this project's class assumption |
| publication count 2020 2026 | 101 |
| infant or kmt2a subset | 24 |
| count date | 2026-09-19 |
key papers — the numbers behind the chart
[
{
"pmid": "42246204",
"doi": "10.1111/bjh.70598",
"year": 2026,
"venue": "Br J Haematol",
"note": "BCL-2 + MCL1 + dexamethasone in infant KMT2A-r PDX; read in full this cycle",
"title": "BCL-2 and MCL1 co-inhibition enhances glucocorticoid therapy in preclinical models of infant KMT2A-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.",
"authors": "Karsa M, Karsa A, Spurling D, et al.",
"title_provenance": "Title/authors/venue backfilled from PubMed esummary on 2026-09-20 because this citation stored a bare PMID with no title, which made it unscoreable by verify-citations.py. BACKFILLING IS NOT VERIFICATION: it confirms the PMID resolves to a real paper, not that this is the right paper for the claim. That still requires reading."
},
{
"pmid": "40016188",
"doi": "10.1038/s41408-025-01239-3",
"year": 2025,
"venue": "Blood Cancer J",
"note": "osteoclast targeting; read in full this cycle; not infant, not KMT2A-r",
"title": "Targeting osteoclasts for treatment of high-risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.",
"authors": "Kotecha RS, Trinder SM, Hughes AM, et al.",
"title_provenance": "Title/authors/venue backfilled from PubMed esummary on 2026-09-20 because this citation stored a bare PMID with no title, which made it unscoreable by verify-citations.py. BACKFILLING IS NOT VERIFICATION: it confirms the PMID resolves to a real paper, not that this is the right paper for the claim. That still requires reading."
},
{
"pmid": "41711432",
"doi": "10.1080/10428194.2026.2631099",
"year": 2026,
"venue": "Leuk Lymphoma",
"note": "menin inhibitors differ in infant KMT2A-r ALL; UNREADABLE, title only",
"title": "Menin inhibitors display differential in vitro sensitivity in KMT2A-rearranged infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia.",
"authors": "Dymock SCC, Oommen J, Malinge S, et al.",
"title_provenance": "Title/authors/venue backfilled from PubMed esummary on 2026-09-20 because this citation stored a bare PMID with no title, which made it unscoreable by verify-citations.py. BACKFILLING IS NOT VERIFICATION: it confirms the PMID resolves to a real paper, not that this is the right paper for the claim. That still requires reading."
},
{
"pmid": "37752126",
"doi": "10.1038/s41408-023-00924-5",
"year": 2023,
"venue": "Blood Cancer J",
"note": "ANZCHOG 119-infant cohort and late effects; read in full this cycle",
"title": "Late effects in survivors of infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia-a study of the Australian and New Zealand Children's Haematology/Oncology Group.",
"authors": "Mironova D, Saraswati CM, Downie P, et al.",
"title_provenance": "Title/authors/venue backfilled from PubMed esummary on 2026-09-20 because this citation stored a bare PMID with no title, which made it unscoreable by verify-citations.py. BACKFILLING IS NOT VERIFICATION: it confirms the PMID resolves to a real paper, not that this is the right paper for the claim. That still requires reading."
},
{
"pmid": "41505662",
"doi": "10.1200/JCO-25-01806",
"year": 2026,
"venue": "J Clin Oncol",
"note": "blinatumomab long-term outcome, toxicity, pharmacokinetics",
"title": "Sustained Benefit of Blinatumomab in Infants With KMT2A-Rearranged ALL: Long-Term Outcomes, Toxicity, and Pharmacokinetics.",
"authors": "Vieira Martins M, de Lorenzo P, Kotecha RS, et al.",
"title_provenance": "Title/authors/venue backfilled from PubMed esummary on 2026-09-20 because this citation stored a bare PMID with no title, which made it unscoreable by verify-citations.py. BACKFILLING IS NOT VERIFICATION: it confirms the PMID resolves to a real paper, not that this is the right paper for the claim. That still requires reading."
},
{
"pmid": "42496646",
"doi": "10.1002/1545-5017.70547",
"year": 2026,
"venue": "Pediatr Blood Cancer",
"note": "IgG depletion and recovery after blinatumomab in infants",
"title": "Immunoglobulin Depletion and Recovery Following Blinatumomab in Infants With KMT2A-Rearranged ALL.",
"authors": "Vieira Martins M, de Lorenzo P, Kotecha RS, et al.",
"title_provenance": "Title/authors/venue backfilled from PubMed esummary on 2026-09-20 because this citation stored a bare PMID with no title, which made it unscoreable by verify-citations.py. BACKFILLING IS NOT VERIFICATION: it confirms the PMID resolves to a real paper, not that this is the right paper for the claim. That still requires reading."
}
]- Can the project obtain PMID 41711432 through an institutional subscription or by writing to the authors? It is the highest-value single document this beat identified and could not read.
- Would the Perth group share their infant KMT2A-rearranged PDX panel for a matched cross-agent menin inhibitor comparison?
- How many other laboratories flagged by ana-literature-recall are in the same position as this one - heavily published, barely cited, and readable by a route the project had not tried?
- E1moderate confidence 3 of 5: One strong study, or several smaller consistent ones.database
A PubMed author query for Kotecha RS covering 2020-2026 returns 101 records, of which 24 also carry infant, KMT2A or MLL in title or abstract.
NCBI E-utilities esearch against PubMed: recorded queries and record counts, run 2026-09-19 · Q7-clinical-infant beat (this graph) · NCBI E-utilities 2026What this evidence cannot show
An author-name query is imprecise: `Kotecha RS[au]` is not disambiguated to one individual and may over-collect. The 24-record subset uses title/abstract terms and will miss papers whose infant relevance is only in the body. Counts are as of 2026-09-19 and grow.
Evidence that argues against this (1)
- This beat's dispatch brief states 69 papers in the same window; the two figures differ by roughly half again, and neither has been disambiguated by ORCID or affiliation, so both should be treated as approximate. Stutterheim J et al. 2025
- E2established confidence 5 of 5: Multiple independent lines of evidence; treated as settled in the field.paper
The group's BCL-2/MCL1 co-inhibition study in infant KMT2A-rearranged ALL models, previously recorded in this graph as having no retrievable abstract, is available as open-access full text through Europe PMC (PMC13461956) and was read in full on 2026-09-19.
BCL-2 and MCL1 co-inhibition enhances glucocorticoid therapy in preclinical models of infant KMT2A-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. · Karsa M, Karsa A, Spurling D, Xiao L, Ronca E, Bongers A, et al. · Br J Haematol 2026What this evidence cannot show
The paper genuinely has no abstract in PubMed or in the Europe PMC metadata record - it is a Letter to the Editor with no structured abstract - which is why abstract-level retrieval failed. Full-text XML retrieval succeeded. The lesson is that 'no abstract' and 'unreadable' are different properties.
Evidence that argues against this (1)
- The earlier record of unreadability was not wrong about the abstract; it was wrong to stop at the abstract. Any entry in this graph marked unreadable on the basis of an efetch abstract check alone should be re-checked against Europe PMC full-text XML. Q7-clinical-infant beat (this graph) 2026
- E3established confidence 5 of 5: Multiple independent lines of evidence; treated as settled in the field.paper
The group's osteoclast-targeting study in high-risk B-ALL, also previously recorded as unreadable, is available as open-access full text through Europe PMC (PMC11868389) and was read in full on 2026-09-19; on reading it uses BCR::ABL1-positive and relapsed-adolescent models and contains no infant KMT2A-rearranged data.
Targeting osteoclasts for treatment of high-risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. · Kotecha RS, Trinder SM, Hughes AM, Mullin BH, Rashid S, Yuan J, et al. · Blood Cancer J 2025What this evidence cannot show
Same abstract-versus-full-text point as above. The scope finding is this beat's judgement from reading the paper, not a statement by its authors, who do not claim infant applicability.
Evidence that argues against this (1)
- The osteoclast-leukaemia crosstalk mechanism is not fusion-specific, so judging the paper inapplicable to infant KMT2A-rearranged disease is a scope judgement that a single conditioned-medium experiment could overturn. Karsa M et al. 2026
- E4moderate confidence 3 of 5: One strong study, or several smaller consistent ones.paper
The group's 2026 report asserting differential in vitro sensitivity among menin inhibitors in KMT2A-rearranged infant ALL has no retrievable abstract from NCBI efetch, Europe PMC or Crossref, is not open access, and its publisher page returned HTTP 403, checked 2026-09-19.
Menin inhibitors display differential in vitro sensitivity in KMT2A-rearranged infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia. · Dymock SCC, Oommen J, Malinge S, Cheung LC, Kotecha RS · Leuk Lymphoma 2026What this evidence cannot show
Bounded unreadable. Only the title, authorship, journal, volume, issue, pages and DOI are known, all fetched this session and cross-checked between efetch ArticleIdList and esummary articleids. No inference is drawn about the paper's contents.
Evidence that argues against this (1)
- Two sibling papers from the same group proved readable on the same day by a route this project had not previously tried, so the unreadable classification here may reflect route coverage rather than genuine unavailability; an institutional subscription would settle it in minutes. Karsa M et al. 2026
- E5strong confidence 4 of 5: Replicated in peer-reviewed work by more than one group.paper
The group is senior author on the ANZCHOG retrospective cohort of 119 infants with ALL diagnosed in Australia and New Zealand 1992-2011, which reports both a full presenting-feature table and systematic late-effects capture in 67 long-term survivors.
Late effects in survivors of infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia-a study of the Australian and New Zealand Children's Haematology/Oncology Group. · Mironova D, Saraswati CM, Downie P, Lai CY, Cook E, Carruthers V, et al. · Blood Cancer J 2023What this evidence cannot show
Retrospective registry study across 20 years of changing protocols. Read in the open-access full text at PMC10522653; the paper carries no PubMed abstract, which is again why it was invisible to abstract-level searching.
Evidence that argues against this (1)
- Its CNS-positive rate of 33.6% is nearly two and a half times Interfant-06's 13.8%, so at least one of the two is measuring something other than CNS disease and the cohort's presenting-feature table should not be treated as a gold standard. Stutterheim J et al. 2025
- E6established confidence 5 of 5: Multiple independent lines of evidence; treated as settled in the field.paper
The group is a co-author on the Interfant blinatumomab reports, including the original NEJM study and the 2026 long-term outcome, toxicity and pharmacokinetics analysis.
Sustained Benefit of Blinatumomab in Infants With KMT2A-Rearranged ALL: Long-Term Outcomes, Toxicity, and Pharmacokinetics. · Vieira Martins M, de Lorenzo P, Kotecha RS, Attarbaschi A, Escherich G, Nysom K, et al. · J Clin Oncol 2026What this evidence cannot show
Co-authorship on an international consortium paper indicates participation, not that the group generated the specific results cited. Abstract read; full text paywalled.
Evidence that argues against this (1)
- Consortium co-authorship spreads across many centres, so this establishes clinical-trial participation rather than a distinct research contribution from this group. van der Sluis IM et al. 2023
- proposed by →MCL1 plus BCL-2 plus dexamethasone: a triple combination that matched induction chemotherapy in infant PDX models
BCL-2/MCL1 co-inhibition with dexamethasone in infant KMT2A-r PDX
- proposed by →Zoledronic acid against the osteoclast: a bone-marrow-niche target, but not tested in infant KMT2A-rearranged disease
osteoclast targeting in high-risk B-ALL
the unreadable differential-sensitivity report that raises the class question
senior author on the 119-infant ANZCHOG cohort
- proposed by →Nine survivors in ten carry a long-term complication, and it is worse the younger they were
systematic late-effects capture in 67 infant ALL survivors
Interfant consortium co-authorship on the blinatumomab programme
principal preclinical laboratory for this disease
101 records 2020-2026, 24 infant/KMT2A, eight enumerated and deferred
Telethon Kids Institute eight-line infant ALL panel
Telethon Kids Institute infant ALL panel
- ← part ofPER-485 (CVCL_W984) — the relapse half of a matched infant t(4;11) pair, and it has lost CD19
Telethon Kids Institute infant ALL panel
Telethon Kids Institute infant ALL panel