My research is primarily focused on the identification of chromosome abnormalities which are characteristic of specific types of tumors. The POG was a cooperative group whose member institutions treated approximately 40% of the pediatric cancer in North America each year. During those 14 years we performed diagnostic karyotyping on over 8000 children with acute leukemia and identified a large number of recurring translocations which characterize specific subtypes of myeloid and lymphoid acute leukemias. We have identified a number of karyotype subgroups which are associated with particular biologic feature and/or with treatment outcome and, in collaboration with other investigators, have identified the genes which are disrupted in several of these recurrent, leukemia-specific translocations. This work is continuing in collaboration with the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) which was formed in 2000 by the merging of POG with the three other North American children’s cancer cooperative groups. A second major focus of the laboratory is the development and utilization of molecular cytogenetic techniques, such as fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to facilitate the research of other UAB investigators. We have collaborated in the development of a sensitive FISH technique using peroxidase-mediated deposition of flurochrome tyramides (T-FISH) to develop a method to detect HIV viral load in the PBMC’s of infected patients. We routinely provide technical support to investigators who wish to localize unique sequence clones across the human genome.