We are pleased to share results of an exciting research enterprise between the BWH/Harvard Cohorts Biorepository’s epidemiologists and population scientists and basic scientists at Washington University: Clonal haematopoiesis harbouring AML-associated mutations is ubiquitous in healthy adults, the first publication from our collaboration.

We applied methods for targeted error-corrected sequencing to study serially banked peripheral blood samples from healthy 50- to 60-year-old participants in the Nurses’ Health Study. We observed clonal haematopoiesis, frequently harbouring mutations in DNMT3A and TET2, in 95% of individuals studied. These clonal mutations, often stable longitudinally and present in multiple haematopoietic compartments, suggest a long-lived haematopoietic stem and progenitor cell of origin.

Nat Commun. 2016 Aug 22;7:12484. doi: 10.1038/ncomms12484. Clonal haematopoiesis harbouring AML-associated mutations is ubiquitous in healthy adults. Young AL1,2, Challen GA3, Birmann BM4, Druley TE1,2.