Searching Family Trees for the Seeds of Cancer

Our genetic code is made up of 3.3 billion base pairs of DNA, and one single base pair change can be enough to put someone at risk for developing disease. Dr. Nicki Camp, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Utah, uses one of the world’s most extensive resources of it’s kind, the Utah Population Database, to hunt down the tiny changes that trigger inherited cancers, including multiple myeloma. She explains what she has found so far and how her work might one day help patients worldwide.