On January 13th, it was learned from Shenzhen University of Technology (preparatory) that Professor Zhao Jiawei from the School of Pharmacy of the university, along with researcher Vijay Sankaran from the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, conducted genetic analysis on more than 460000 patient samples from the UK biological sample database to identify a novel family pathogenic risk factor for myeloid malignant hematological tumors. This discovery is expected to provide new ideas for potential early screening and intervention of early-onset leukemia. The relevant research results are published in the international journal Cell. "At present, the cure for leukemia highly relies on the transplantation of healthy hematopoietic stem cells. The matching of hematopoietic stem cells between non relatives usually requires a very long wait, which delays the effective treatment time of patients." Zhao Jiawei introduced. The research team proposes a hypothesis that some congenital familial heritable risk factors may play an important role in the pathogenesis of leukemia. "Although scientists have conducted relatively complete research on the occurrence and related pathogenic mechanisms of blood tumors such as leukemia in recent decades, their understanding of the role of genetic factors in blood tumors is still very limited," said Zhao Jiawei. The development and improvement of high-throughput sequencing technology have brought more possibilities for population genetics research. At the end of 2020, Zhao Jiawei and others used the UK biological sample database to analyze the genome-wide genetic information of over 460000 patients and identified heritable risk factors with high familial association. "This work has identified a new gene - CTR9. Compared to other common genetic factors, the genetic mutation carried by this gene can increase the susceptibility of blood tumors by 10 times." Vijay Sankaran introduced. In the following two years of validation experiments, the research team found that when and only when CTR9 is partially absent, human long-term and short-term hematopoietic stem cells exhibit significant expansion; When CTR9 is completely absent, human hematopoietic stem cells cannot maintain homeostasis for a long time. Zhao Jiawei told reporters that they will further explore the steady-state mechanism of hematopoietic stem cells and the transformation mechanism of hematopoietic stem cells into leukemia in the future, providing more strategies and ideas for leukemia treatment. (Le Xin She) (Reporter Luo Yunpeng)