A genetic mutation that disrupts how DNA sends messages to the rest of a cell has been linked to a large number of blood cancers. Thanks to a collaboration between biologists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), we now know how the mutation triggers a chain of biological events that lead to most leukemias.
The deadly chain of events begins with RNA splicing, a process that converts messages from DNA into instructions for making proteins in a cell.