A new single-cell profiling technique has mapped pre-malignant gene mutations and their effects in solid tissues for the first time, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center.
The research, published Dec. 31 in Cancer Discovery, demonstrates a practical method for simultaneously measuring specific DNA mutations and gene activity in thousands of individual cells from human tissue. The technique is expected to be useful for studying pre-cancerous cells and may ultimately guide early cancer detection and preventive therapies.
“This is a technological demonstration that opens up many new avenues of scientific research and even allows us to start thinking about therapeutic strategies,” said study senior author Dr. Dan Landau, Bibliowicz Family Professor of…