At the 2014 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, Prof Robin Foà (Sapienza University, Rome, Italy) discusses how understanding disease biology leads to targeted therapies in different types of leukaemia, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML), chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).