James C. Mulloy, PhD

Microenvironment and Flt3 Signaling in MLL Leukemia

Dr. Mulloy’s lab has recently shown that human blood stem cells can be induced to make leukemia upon introduction of a leukemia oncogene into these cells. This is one of the first models that use human cells rather than mouse cells to produce leukemia. This is a significant advance for the field of leukemia biology, since the signals that are important in mouse cancer can be different from the signals needed for human cancer. Dr. Mulloy will use this model system to study the signaling pathways that are initiated by the leukemia oncogene, and to test novel therapeutic approaches targeted to the key events that occur during the development of leukemia.