Dr. Rashkovan's life-long ambition to find a cure for cancer began at age 14 when her mother was diagnosed with stage 3 follicular B cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. "I didn’t want anyone else to experience what we went through. I wanted to help as many people as I could,” she says. She is studying T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), an aggressive blood cancer that accounts for 10-15% of pediatric and 25% of adult ALL cases. She has found a unique metabolic profile for a subtype of T ALL cells that are especially difficult to treat and have a higher likelihood of early relapse. Patients with this cancer have survival rates around 13%, and children who do survive face significant side effects later in life from the intense chemotherapy regimens.