T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematologic malignancy that affects both children and adults. Optimization of chemotherapy regimens over the last five decades has led to steady improvements in outcome for pediatric patients, who have a long-term survival rate of 80%. For adults, however, the five-year survival rate is only 35–40% and both pediatric and adult patients who suffer relapse have uniformly poor outcomes. 1 Further, improvements in outcome will thus require introduction of new approaches and more specific, targeted therapies.

Testing of new therapeutic agents, has been restricted in part by the lack of a simple and efficient method for studying patient cells ex vivo. Most preclinical studies to date have relied on a relatively small number of permanent cell lines. Many of these lines were established from malignant effusions in patients with advanced-stage disease and have been maintained in culture for long periods, raising concerns about how well they reflect the biology of typical disease in patients. Studies involving primary T-ALLs, xenografted in immunodeficient mice are generally perceived to be better models of human disease, but are costly and time-consuming.