Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
The most common malignant childhood disease is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).
The sucess of leukemia therapy is at a standstill because innovative treatment strategies that are less severe and could contribute to an additional increase of the healing rate do not exist.
The analysis of the normal development of lymphocytes helps us to understand how ALL emerges. We examine the biological differentiation of lymphopoiesis in combination with their natural cellular environment to discover crucial reactive paths which affect leukaemogenesis. Our research covers the studies of the identification of a presumptive leukemia stem cell, mechanistic models of the maturation standstill and disturbances in the cellular communication by means of receiving, forwarding and processing signals. The studies are based on integrated analyses of the transcription and the phosphoproteome signature of leukemia cells.
Our implemented leukemia research also focuses on bioinformatic risk models that shall provide a precise prediction about the possibility of relapsing disease or to the response to leukemia therapy.