Leukemia stem cells in T-ALL
We are continuing our work examining the roles of PKCθ and Wnt signaling, as well as pursuing exciting new leads emanating from our human cord blood model, in establishing/maintaining leukemia stem cell activity in T-ALL.
In the PKCθ project, we have taken a biochemical approach to dissecting downstream pathways. We developed an analog-specific kinase variant of PKCθ, followed by discovery mode mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) to define direct kinase targets, and are pursuing functional validation of hits. This work is being done in collaboration with Gregg Morin at BCCA.