Xenotransplantation in Immunodeficient Mice to Evaluate New Therapeutic Strategies for Refractory Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

New approaches are required to triage among new candidate approaches for the treatment of drug-resistant childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We therefore developed a preclinical research platform by xenotransplantation of primary ALL cells to constitute a bank of highly selected samples from de novo resistant, relapsed and refractory cases on the ALL-BFM-2000 and on the ALL-REZ-BFM-2002 trials. The power of this model resides in the possibility to test new agents on a large number of samples from patients that are eligible for phase I/II studies. Because modulation of cell death regulators represents an attr…