VH-mediated mechanisms in normal and neoplastic B cell development.

Lymphomagenesis is viewed as a multistep process involving many independent transforming events. From several lines of investigation, it is speculated that in many cases, the early transforming events take place at a very early stage of B cell development. The focus of our laboratory is to understand the physiologic processes that ensure the development of normal B cells. It follows then that when one such process at an early stage of development is aberrant, the B cell will be prone to transformation events and dysregulated expansion.