To produce safe and effective therapies for patients, novel research must first occur in cell culture systems. In this interview, Christoph Plass, PhD, from the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany, discusses his teams research into epigenetic therapies and provides us with an overview of the numerous potential benefits of improved understanding of the molecular mechanism of these therapies, highlighting potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker identification. This interview was recorded at the International Conference on Acute Myeloid Leukaemia 2017 in Estoril, Portugal by the European School of Haematology (ESH).