Introduction

Listen to a blog summary of an editorial in Volume 14, entitled, “Proof-of-principle: targeted childhood leukemia prevention.” ___________________________________________ Childhood leukemia is a devastating disease that affects thousands of children every year. Despite significant advancements in the field of pediatric oncology, childhood leukemia remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children, with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) being the most common form. Some cases of childhood B-ALL arise from congenital mutations that lead to a silent population of pre-leukemic cells. These cells at some point are triggered by a catalyst (possibly by delayed exposure to a common infection), acquire additional genetic mutations and ultimately develop into B-ALL. However, researchers have yet to fully understand how to target these pre-leukemic cells to prevent B-ALL. In a new editorial paper, researchers César Cobaleda, Manuel Ramírez-Orellana, Carolina Vicente-Dueñas, Andreas Weiss, Kim E. Nichols, and Isidro Sánchez-García from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid discuss a novel method of targeting pre-leukemic cells in practice. On March 11, 2023, the team published their editorial in Oncotarget, entitled, “Proof-of-principle: targeted childhood leukemia prevention.” “[…] one would have to find a way to specifically target these preleukemic cells. Recently, a mouse model recapitulating the phenotype of a leukemia-predisposition syndrome has allowed us to carry out a proof-of-principle experiment to achieve this very goal.” Full blog - https://www.oncotarget.org/2023/03/31/targeting-pre-leukemic-cells-new-hope-for-preventing-childhood-b-all/ Paper DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28371 Correspondence to - César Cobaleda - cesar.cobaleda@csic.es Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://oncotarget.altmetric.com/deta... Subscribe for free publication alerts from Oncotarget - https://www.oncotarget.com/subscribe/ Keywords - leukemia, infection, murine models, genetic susceptibility, prevention About Oncotarget Oncotarget is a primarily oncology-focused, peer-reviewed, open access journal. Papers are published continuously within yearly volumes in their final and complete form, and then quickly released to Pubmed. On September 15, 2022, Oncotarget was accepted again for indexing by MEDLINE. Oncotarget is now indexed by Medline/PubMed and PMC/PubMed. To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com and connect with us: SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/oncotargetjrnl/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@OncotargetJournal LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/ Media Contact MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM 18009220957