Recently, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on the development of therapeutic agents that target specific disease sites in the body. These pharmaceuticals often cause significantly fewer side effects and are effective in relatively lower doses. With this in mind, extensive studies were carried out examining the utility of leukotoxin (LtxA), a protein secreted from the oral bacterium, A. Actinobacmycetemcomitans, as an agent for the treatment of a variety of medical conditions. Experiments have shown that LtxA can be readily isolated from cell growth media and purified to provide sufficient material for further testing. In addition, the separated protein was found to specifically target, bind to, and kill white blood cells (WBCs) associated with hematol. cancers, latent infection, and autoimmune diseases. This specificity is believed to be directly related to the presence of the activated form of leukocyte function antigen-1 (LFA-1) on the surface of the WBCs resulting for these conditions and since other tissues or organs in the body do not possess this receptor, LtxA is expected to have little or no effect on non-targeted cells. In vitro experiments have shown that leukotoxin efficiently kills a variety of leukemia and lymphoma cells including those from patients with refractory disease. In addition, mice in a humanized leukemia test model treated with LtxA cells were found to live significantly longer than control animals. The translation of this drug candidate from an academic research laboratory to a preclin. drug candidate at a start-up pharmaceutical company will also be discussed.