🔬 Science Jun 23, 2026 · Ben Sullivan

A Common Gene Variant Once Blamed for Cancer Turns Out to Guard Against It

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Back in 1998, Boris Pasche found something odd buried in a stretch of human DNA that most people will never think about. A tiny deletion, three little repeats gone, in a gene that helps cells decide when to stop growing. It looked like trouble. And for the better part of three decades, that is exactly what nearly everyone assumed it was.
The variant has a name only a geneticist could love: TGFBR1*6A. Roughly 14 percent of us carry it, often without the faintest idea, because the thing has a habi

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