Scientists say they’ve figured out how to track down people they call “genetic superheroes.”
These are people who remain healthy even though they were born with genetic mutations that would usually lead to devastating disorders.
If enough of these people can be identified and studied, the researchers hope they could yield important new insights into the causes of many genetic disorders and possibly lead to new ways to prevent or treat them.
“This is a powerful opportunity to benefit many people by searching within one person to find something that could help many,” says Dr. Stephen Friend, who runs Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit research center in Seattle, and helped lead the work.