AML is a common blood cancer of children. Currently, about 30-40% of children with AML fail to respond well to treatment. In addition, chemotherapy often has severe toxic side effects that can have long-term consequences for patient survival and quality of life. Thus, development of more effective, less toxic drugs for AML based on biomarker-targeted therapy is critical. Studies have found that a protein called MDM2 is frequently overexpressed in leukemic cells from AML patients, and high level of MDM2 (relative to normal cells, i.e.
