The team has shown that the microenvironment that controls hematopoietic stem cells can be targeted for the treatment of a set of disorders called
myeloproliferative neoplasias, the most prominent of which are chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), and atypical chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML).
The findings, published today in Nature, demonstrate that
these myeloproliferative neoplasias only appear after damage to the microenvironment that sustains and controls the hematopoietic stem cells — the cells that produce the cells of the blood and the immune system.