New DNA sequencing methods detect rare mutations acquired as bodies grow and age‎

Somatic mutations, the DNA changes that occur as our bodies grow and age, not only hold an important key to cancer but are emerging as the seeds of a wide range of common, noncancerous diseases. The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Network, a National Institutes of Health Common Fund initiative to catalog all the normal processes of somatic mutation, has published its first comprehensive benchmarking study in the journal Cell.