Study of Natural Killer Cells in Bone Marrow and Blood Samples From Patients With and Without Hematologic Cancer

OBJECTIVES: * To collect normal and malignant cells in bone marrow and peripheral blood samples from patients with acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, chronic myelogenous leukemia, or multiple myeloma and from patients with no malignancy to use as target cells in cytotoxicity assays. * To collect information about HLA type and immunophenotype of malignant cells as determined by clinical flow cytometry. OUTLINE: Bone marrow aspirates and/or peripheral blood samples are collected and used as target cells in standard cytotoxicity assays, with notch-induced natural killer (N-NK) cells as the effector cells, to determine whether N-NK cells are capable of killing malignant cells and/or non-malignant cells. Receptor-blocking antibodies may be added to determine which NK cell receptors are responsible for malignant cell recognition and killing. Information about HLA type and immunophenotype of the malignant cells is collected from the patient's medical record.