Thomas Burmeister

TL;DR: T cells engaged by blinatumomab seem capable of eradicating chemotherapy-resistant tumor cells that otherwise cause clinical relapse in patients with MRD-positive B-lineage ALL after intensive chemotherapy.

TL;DR: The precise localization of genomic breakpoints within the MLL gene and the involved translocation partner genes (TPGs) was determined and several new TPGs were identified and two new MLL rearrangements are now characterized at the molecular level.

TL;DR: This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the MLL recombinome in acute leukemia and demonstrates that the establishment of patient-specific chromosomal fusion sites allows the design of specific PCR primers for minimal residual disease analyses for all patients.

TL;DR: It is concluded that blinatumomab can induce long-lasting complete remission in B-lineage ALL patients with persistent or recurrent MRD and of the subgroup of 6 Philadelphia chromosome-negative MRD responders with no further therapy after blinumomab, 4 are in ongoing hematologic and molecular remission.

TL;DR: Long-distance inverse-polymerase chain reaction was used to characterize the chromosomal rearrangement of individual acute leukemia patients and revealed a total of 121 different MLL rearrangements, of which 79 TPGs are now characterized at the molecular level.