Genomic approaches to the pathogenesis and treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemias.

During the past 2 years, gene expression-profiling technology has been used to characterize multiple tumor types. These studies represent the initial attempts to understand cancer at the whole genome level and have given us our first glimpse into what can be learned from such analysis. This technology is beginning to be applied to the study of human leukemias. Recent studies focusing on lymphoblastic leukemia have provided insight into classification and pathogenesis.