Leveraging Genome Editing to Study Childhood Leukemia

The central question of our lab is to understand how a normal blood stem cell can become cancerous. In leukemia, the initiating genetic mutations occur as early as during fetal development. Our team applies cutting-edge CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing approaches in human primary blood stem cells to model the pre-leukemic and leukemic phases of acute myeloid and acute lymphoblastic leukemia in vivo. The goal is to uncover insights into the genetic, cellular and developmental mechanisms of leukemia, with a particular focus on childhood leukemia, and identify therapeutic vulnerabilities of the disease.

Please see our lab website: www.WagenblastLab.com