Despite great success in the development of curative therapies for pediatric hematologic malignancies, new approaches are needed to overcome resistance to treatment and to reduce associated side effects. The Therapeutic Advances in Childhood Leukemia and Lymphoma (TACL) Consortium is an early phase clinical trial group dedicated to developing innovative therapies for currently incurable pediatric leukemias and lymphomas ( https://tacl.chla.usc.edu/tacl/ ). In November of 2016, a TACL Investigator Meeting was held, the proceedings of which appear in this edition of Pediatric Hematology Oncology. This introductory article provides an overview of TACL and introduces the five-part proceedings.
Keywords: Clinical trials; leukemia; lymphoma; molecularly targeted agents; pediatric.