Loma Linda Children's Hospital Archives

2014

Scholar Grant

Dr. Kimberly Payne

Loma Linda, CA

Cancer is still a death sentence for 1 in 5 children with the most common childhood leukemia. In 2009, a particularly deadly form of this disease was identified. This is especially important to us at Loma Linda Children’s Hospital because Hispanic and Native American Children who make up the majority of our pediatric patients are five times more likely to have this aggressive form of leukemia than other children. Our work shows that this type of deadly leukemia can be activated by chemicals in the body to produce a protein that helps the leukemia cells resist chemotherapy. Our studies will test drugs that target this chemotherapy resistance protein to see if these drugs are effective against this aggressive childhood leukemia. These studies are the next step toward clinical trials to test drugs for their ability to improve the survival of children with this deadly disease at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital and around the world.