Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), also known as chronic myeloid leukemia, is a cancer of the white blood cells. It is a form of leukemia characterized by the increased and unregulated growth of myeloid cells in the bone marrow and the accumulation of these cells in the blood. CML is a clonal bone marrow stem cell disorder in which a proliferation of mature granulocytes (neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils) and their precursors is found. It is a type of myeloproliferative neoplasm associated with a characteristic chromosomal translocation called the Philadelphia chromosome.

Breast Cancer

Identify Good Molecular Targets

Because of the heterogeneity of many tumors, it is very challenging work to identify good molecular targets. For instance, resistant subclones of overexpressed and mutated genes may prevent them from being good molecular targets. Therefore, the best target is a core gene whose mutation occurs early in oncogenesis and dysregulates a key pathway that drives tumor growth in all of the subclones. Examples include mutations in the genes ABL, HER-2, KIT, EGFR, and probably BRAF, in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Computational Methods and Tools

Computational models of chronic myelogenous leukemia (E.g. delay differential equation (DDE) models).
Bioinformatics methods in identifying disease mechanisms.
Methods integrating medical images and sequencing data.
Drug repositioning and drug target prediction.
Validation of results from computational studies by experiments.

Specifically, the graphical tool Bio Model Analyzer (available at http://biomodelanalyzer.org/) has previously been used to encapsulate chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) cell signaling information from >150 publications in a QN model able to successfully recapitulate multiple independent experimental results.

Weighted genetic networks generated using computational biology may be complementary to biological experiments for the evaluation of known or novel CML target genes. CD ComputaBio also has multiple resources including academic research and preclinical works in the identification of a suitable disease target and its corresponding hit.