BCL2 and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia: Consistent with our experiments demonstrating that EC-7072 elicits apoptotic CLL cell death in a caspase-3-dependent manner, the mithralog reprogrammed leukemia cell expression of a set of genes that control apoptosis, including the downregulation of BCL2 gene and protein expression, an antiapoptotic protein highly expressed in CLL cells that is an attractive target for CLL therapies (45), and a pronounced increase in Noxa levels, a proapoptotic protein commonly upregulated in CLL as a result of treatment with apoptosis-inducing agents (46–48).