Leukemias and other cancers have been proposed to contain a subpopulation of cells that
display characteristics of stem cells and maintain tumor growth. The fact that most anticancer
therapy is directed against the bulk of the tumor, and possibly spares the cancer stem cells,
may lie at the heart of treatment failures with conventional modalities. Leukemia stem cells
are fairly well described for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but their existence and relevance
for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is less clear. Several reports describe …