A joint work of Thomas Mercher and Isabelle Plo/Hana Raslova‘s teams focuses on acute megakaryoblastic leukemia of Down syndrome. This type of leukemia specifically affects young children with Down syndrome.

The researchers genetically modified stem cells with the CRISPR Cas 9 technique to recreate genetic abnormalities present in this type of leukemia. Several techniques were performed to characterize the genetics and epigenetics to better understand the mechanism of tumor progression.