Despite the advent of new therapeutic agents, including imatinib (for BCR-ABL-positive leukemias) and rituximab (for B-cell tumors), allogeneic haematologic stem-cell transplantation retains its position as the sole treatment offering cure to patients with advanced hematological malignancies.

The powerful anti-tumor effect, named graft-versus-tumor (GVT) or graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effects, is considered to be mediated by graft-originated donor T cells that recognize recipient allo-antigens, especially minor histocompatibility antigens expressed by tumor and leukemic cells. This effect was discovered by the fact that the patients who have been through GVHD were free from relapse or recurrence after remission of the tumors.

Using lymphoma and leukemia animal models, our research focuses on the identification of cellular mechanism to enhance the beneficial GVL effect, meanwhile suppressing detrimental GVH reaction, and the genes involved in trans-endothelial migration of leukocytes.