As we wrap up the week here, we wanted to share a great research update from one of ALSF's first 'A' Award recipients, Todd Druley, MD, PhD, from Washington University in St. Louis, recently discovered through his research that babies who develop leukemia during their first year of life appear to have inherited a genetic predisposition that can make them highly susceptible to the disease.
Unlike leukemia in older children, which can often be cured, infant leukemia is very rare and more difficult to cure. Doctors have been baffled why babies that are just a few months old can develop cancer since they have not lived long enough to accumulate a critical number of cancer-causing mutations. Dr. Druley’s research has shed a bit of light on this question. His findings indicate that babies appear to have inherited rare genetic variants from both parents that by themselves would not cause problems, but in combination put the infants at high risk of leukemia.
Dr. Druley wants to continue to study these inherited variations and learn more about how they can lead to leukemia. The hope is that it may be possible to use a technique called genetic editing to remove the harmful gene from the DNA of infants who are susceptible to leukemia, and replace it with a healthy version of the same gene, ultimately sparing babies and their families from a devastating diagnosis.
September 12, 2014
