Leukemia is a cancer of the blood that is characterized by an abnormal production of white blood cells. Traditional approaches for treating leukemia combine chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and bone marrow (or stem cell) transplants. The treatment of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) was revolutionized over the past decade with the introduction of new molecular-targeted drugs. Unfortunately, these drugs keep many patients in remission but do not cure the disease.

In this talk we will also discuss our recent work on mathematical models of cancer stem cells and their role in developing drug resistance. When combined with clinical and experimental data, our mathematical analysis of drug resistance provides new insights on how to approach treating CML. This is a joint work with Peter Kim, Cristian Tomasetti, and Peter Lee.