Funded by the Dick Vitale Gala in Memory of John Saunders
Our goal is to understand why infants get a type of cancer called leukemia. Infant leukemia is devastating, and most of these children will die of their cancer. A common question parents ask is, “Why did my child get this disease?” Our work suggests that the cause is, at least partly, genetic. My lab is developing tools to determine which genetic changes are actually important for causing infant leukemia and which are not. We are focusing on changes that are inherited from generation to generation, even in families that have no history of infant leukemia. Through our studies, we hope to answer the “Why?” question for parents and other relatives, and we hope develop new treatments for infant leukemia that are more effective and less toxic.
