Blood Mutations May Indicate Higher Cancer Likelihood, Researchers Find

Two independent teams of researchers spanning the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Medical School, and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have identified a precancerous state in blood that indicates a higher likelihood that an individual will develop blood cancers, according to their findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week. Benjamin Ebert, an associate professor at the Medical School who led one of the research teams, said both groups studied DNA sequences in blood and focused on somatic mutations, mutations individuals acquire over time as opposed to those they inherit.

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