Richard Aplenc, MD

• Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML)

Dr. Richard Aplenc is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics and a core faculty member of the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness at CHOP. He holds the Mai and Harry F. West Endowed Chair in Pediatric Research. Dr. Aplenc’s research focuses on improving the outcomes of children with cancer, particularly acute myeloid leukemia (AML.) His work involves the treatment of AML in children and the use of genetic data to predict treatment response to therapeutic interventions. Dr. Aplenc has NIH funded research efforts in pediatric AML focused on determining the genetic predictors of treatment response (specifically relapse and infection risk) and using administrative/billing data to augment NCI funded cooperative oncology group clinical trials. He is currently leading a genome-wide genotyping effort to discover genetic variations that change the risks of relapse, life-threatening infections, and heart complications in children treated for AML. He also leads several efforts to use administrative data sets to improve the care of children with AML, particularly focusing on antibiotic and intensive care use.