The overarching goal of the Agarwal lab is to identify novel drivers of disease initiation, progression, and drug resistance in leukemia and to ultimately translate these discoveries into treatments for leukemia patients. Specifically, our lab is interested in understanding the composite interplay of genetic events and the tumor microenvironment that are requisite for initiating the growth of preleukemic cells, disease evolution from preleukemic to leukemic stage, and conferring drug resistance. To identify novel pathways of disease initiation and drug resistance, we have developed various functional assays, which we employ in tandem with, single cell transcriptomic, genomic, and proteomic approaches. We take a multidisciplinary approach and utilize various state-of-art techniques to dissect the functional role and therapeutic relevance of identified pathways. Our goal is to use this knowledge to improve the understanding of disease pathobiology and inform the development of novel, molecularly targeted therapies for patients.