Scientists have uncovered a promising treatment strategy for an aggressive type of leukaemia – through targeting the enzymes that cells normally use to sense and adapt to changing oxygen levels.

Scientists have found a way to monitor in real time how bone marrow stem cells produce the different types of cells in the blood – a process called haematopoiesis.

By studying rare cases of identical twins with leukaemia, scientists have shed new light on the origins of the most common type of childhood cancer – confirming it originates in the womb but that events after birth determine whether or not clinical leukaemia develops.