Friends of Heroes Grantee, Dr. Joseph Wiemels
Career Development: Scholar in Clinical Research
Joseph Wiemels, PhD – 2004 (Active) – 2634-04
The Regents of the
Etiology and Natural History of Pediatric Leukemias with t(12;21) TEL-AML1 Translocations
Leukemia is the most common cancer in childhood. Despite many advances in the treatment of childhood leukemia, the disease remains a tragic circumstance in suffering and mortality. The advances in treatment are not matched by advances in discovering the cause or means to prevent the disease.
Leukemia is associated with genetic changes in certain types of blood cells, and we have discovered that one type of change, chromosomal translocations, very often occur before the child is born. These translocations are quite common among children, most of who never get leukemia. However, we have very little information about the genetic changes that occur after birth and how these changes ultimately cause leukemia.
We currently propose to apply new techniques in the field of cancer genetics to identify the identity and exact sequences of these secondary genetic events in the most common type of leukemia, those with the translocation t(12;21).
These techniques, termed “array comparative genomic hybridization” and “inverse polymerase chain reaction” will be used within a comprehensive epidemiology study of childhood leukemia in
From: lls.org
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