In 2008, a team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis became the first to decode the DNA of a patient’s cancer cells and trace the disease to its genetic roots. The patient, a woman in her 50s, suffered from acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive and often deadly cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The findings garnered the research team worldwide acclaim and paved the way for more personalized approaches for the treatment of cancer based on the clusters of mutations in patients’ tumors.
Serendipity unites physicians, researchers, families to fight rare genetic disease in kids

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