Cellular Diversity and Disease Assessment in ALL

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is a malignancy of lymphoid progenitor cells in the bone marrow and blood. The disease has a bimodal distribution with 80% of ALL patients presenting as children who respond positively to therapy. However, for adult patients ALL can be a devastating disease, with only 30–40% achieving long–term remission. Chromosomal abnormalities, such as the Philadelphia chromosome, are commonly found in ALL and are a major determinant of prognostic outcome. While long-term survival in pediatric ALL without chromosomal abnormalities approaches 90%, Philadelphia chromosome positive adult ALL has a five-year survival rate of 5 – 20%. As research into the genomic determinants of ALL disease progression and response to therapy advance, researchers require a label-free way to isolate disease-associated cells for research and development.