Patent 7786170 was granted and assigned to University of South Florida on August, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Due to the poor long-term clinical outcome in the adult patients with several forms of acute leukemia novel treatment strategies are needed to overcome resistance and sensitize the leukemia blasts to the extrinsic and intrinsic pathway of apoptosis. Treatment with LAQ824 and Apo-2L/TRAIL alone has been recognized to induce apoptosis of leukemia blasts but intrinsic mechanisms of resistance limit the antileukemia activity of either agent when administered alone. The inventive method overcomes the resistance to current apoptosis inducing treatments demonstrated by AML and CML-BC cells by concomitantly administering Apo-2L/TRAIL with the histone deacetylase inhibitor LAQ824.