Kostas Stamatopoulos, MD, PhD from the Institute of Applied Biosciences, Center for Research and Technology Hellas, Thessaloniki, Greece summarises the importance of signalling in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) at the International Workshop on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (iwCLL) 2017 in New York, NY. Dr Stamatopoulos describes how B-cells in CLL communicate with the surrounding microenvironment. In particular, he mentions the B-cell receptor being implicated in the recognition of specific signals, playing a role in proliferation and resistance to death. Dr Stamatopoulos explains how there are many more receptors and signalling pathways that act in a similar way. The complex interaction of all pathways is important in CLL and for producing future therapies, which can be designed to disrupt specific signalling pathways.