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More than a hundred years ago, Austrian monk Gregor Mendel observed something astounding in flowering pea plants: a first glimpse of genetics. Today, Mendel’s observations about how physical traits pass from one generation to the next continue to inspire amazing discoveries.

A decade ago, patients with one of the myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) faced an uncertain future. A blood disorder that frequently progresses to acute leukemia, MDS affect more than 20,000 individuals in the United States each year, though little is known about their molecular origins. MDS can be difficult to diagnose and can be even harder to predict how severely it might impact an individual patient. Therapeutic options remain limited and often benefit only a fraction of patients who receive treatment.

Diagnosing a heart attack quickly is critical: heart attacks kill more than 600,000 people in the United States every year, but if a doctor can accurately and rapidly diagnose a patient, the patient can immediately receive medication or catheter-based treatment. For years, researchers have looked for proteins or biochemicals in the blood that are released when heart cells are injured (biomarkers), but the ones that scientists have identified to date are only detectable several hours after the injury.