Occasionally, it may be erroneous when cancer cells use key hematopoietic genes aberrantly, particularly in leukemias that are driven by mutations in genes that facilitate lineage plasticity, such as KMT2A. In this context, a quantitative molecular assessment of hematopoietic cell states that does not rely on any individual marker, but instead builds on entire cellular transcriptomes, would provide an unbiased readout of cell states. This evidence concerns the gene KMT2A and cancer.