Each year, about 30,000 people are diagnosed with acute leukemia in the United States. More than half of those cases are in people older than 60. About 22,000 people die from leukemia each year in the United States. Medical advances have greatly increased survival rates in young people, but cure rates drop sharply as age increases. Leukemia can be a difficult disease to treat.
Chemotherapy often is effective at destroying leukemia cells that are circulating in the body.
However, it may not be able to destroy the leukemia stem cells in the bone marrow. These stem cells then produce more leukemia cells, leading to a relapse of the disease. Because the CD123 protein is not found on normal stem cells, this research opens up the possibility of designing drugs using an antibody to CD123, which would attack only the leukemia stem cells and leave the normal stem cells untouched. Jordan and his team are working with researchers at Duke University to link the antibody to CD123 with a short-lived radioisotope. Jordan also is investigating linking the antibody to a chemical toxin.