Background
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in children and young adults. Despite advances in the treatment outcome for pediatric ALL patients, there remain a considerable number of individuals who do not respond to conventional therapy or experience treatment failure and relapse. In particular, adolescent ALL patients carry a poor prognosis and the biologic basis for this is poorly understood.

Background
Synovial sarcoma (SS) represents the most common non-rhabdomyosarcomatous soft-tissue malignancy in pediatric patients; 30% of all synovial sarcomas manifest during the first two decades of life with a median age of 13 years. These aggressive tumors are largely resistant to conventional chemotherapy-based forms of treatment, underscoring the need for an understanding of their pathogenesis and the development of disease-specific biologic agents which target the molecular hallmark, the SS18-SSX fusion protein, or its interactions.

Background

Background

AML, the second most common blood cancer in children, is a form of leukemia which is extremely difficult to treat.  Nearly half of all children diagnosed with AML will not be cured.  This includes many patients whose leukemia will initially respond to chemotherapy, only to return (or 'relapse') at a later time.  With currently available treatments, cure rates for relapsed AML remain very low.  Improved methods of predicting and detecting relapse, combined with improved leukemia treatments, are urgently needed.   It is with this in mind that our laboratory studies the WT1 gene.  WT1 plays a