Dr. Hitzler’s laboratory research is focused on the genomic and functional analysis of leukemia cells to determine how this progression from neonatal pre-leukemia to fully transformed leukemia takes place and to find a way to predict which children are at highest risk. His clinical research aims i) to determine the optimal treatment for children with myeloid leukemia of Down syndrome in a large clinical trial conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), ii) to find out why children with Down syndrome and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) more often experience life-threatening infections during treatment and how to prevent them, and iii) how to innovate leukemia treatment for this vulnerable group of children.