St. Jude leukemia studies have pioneered how the world treats the disease, helping to increase the cure rate. Scientists at St. Jude are leading studies to understand how to personalize treatments better by increasing therapy for those at high risk of relapse and reducing therapy to limit the late effects of care for those likely to be cured. Pediatric leukemia is the most common cancer affecting children. Among the different types of childhood leukemia, around 75% of cases are Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). St. Jude treats ALL as well as Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL), and Mixed Phenotype Acute Leukemia. St. Jude also treats myelodysplasia, a pre-leukemic disorder. As many as 30% of patients with myelodysplasia may later develop AML. Learn more about leukemia in children.
To schedule an interview with one of our experts, email media@stjude.org.
Leukemia Experts
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Hiroto Inaba, MD, PhD
Inaba
Hiroto Inaba, MD, PhD, is the interim director of the Leukemia/Lymphoma Division and director of the Pediatric Hematology Oncology Fellowship Program. He is the principal investigator of the clinical trial known as Total Therapy XVII, the 17th iteration of a legendary series of clinical trials that began in 1962 when Donald Pinkel introduced simultaneous, multi-drug therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and lymphoma (LLy).
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Jeffery Klco, MD, PhD, St. Jude Department of Pathology, is the director of the St. Jude Division of Hematopathology and Molecular Pathology and the medical director of Hematopathology and Immunopathology. He studies the genomics of pediatric myeloid tumors and myelodysplastic syndromes. Pediatric myeloid tumors commonly have a different set of genetic alterations from those seen in adults. Klco and his laboratory are working to understand the signaling pathways that contribute to myeloid cell development better and are using genomic information to improve the outcomes and risk stratification of children with these disorders.
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Charles Mullighan, MBBS, MSc, MD, St. Jude Department of Pathology, is deputy director of the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center and medical director of the St. Jude Biorepository. His research uses integrated genomic, epigenomic and experimental approaches to understand acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and related disorders. He has led landmark studies that have defined the inherited and somatic genetic alterations in ALL. Mullighan can provide considerable insight into findings that have led to genomically informed diagnostic approaches and multiple clinical trials testing precision medicine approaches.
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Ching-Hon Pui, MD, St. Jude Global China Region director, was the long-time St. Jude Department of Oncology chair. With more than 45 years in the field, Pui has helped change how acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is treated worldwide, improving survival rates while providing less toxic treatments. Work by Pui showed that cranial irradiation, once part of standard treatment for childhood ALL, can be omitted altogether, sparing patients the adverse long-term effects of such treatment. He has been one of the most highly cited investigators in clinical medicine for the past two decades. Pui has also worked to make the highest level of care available to children, collaborating with chairs of leukemia committees in 14 major national study groups worldwide. His partnerships in China have had a profound influence, helping convince the Chinese government in 2010 to extend health coverage to childhood leukemia patients.
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Mitchell Weiss, MD, PhD, St. Jude Department of Hematology chair, is a leading researcher on the biology of blood cell formation, non-malignant blood diseases and their treatments. His research interests include gene expression mechanisms during blood cell development, non-coding RNAs in red blood cell formation and hemoglobin structure and biology. At St Jude, Weiss has been investigating gene editing approaches for treating sickle cell disease.
