A new blood test could detect leukemia risk without taking bone marrow samples.

What if a blood test could reveal the pace of our aging and the diseases that await us? The laboratories of Professors Liran Shlush and Amos Tanay at the Weizmann Institute of Science conduct extensive studies of blood biology to better understand the aging process and why some people become more susceptible to disease as we get older. Their research teams—composed of physicians, biologists, and data scientists—have been tracking changes in hematopoietic stem cells , including the appearance of genetic changes in these cells in about one-third of people over 40. These changes not only increase the risk of blood cancers like leukemia , but have also been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and other age-related conditions.

In a new study published Friday in Nature Medicine, Shlush and Tanay present findings that could lead to the development of an innovative blood test to detect leukemia risk . This test could replace the invasive diagnostic procedure of bone marrow sampling.

The study focused on myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), an age-related condition in which blood stem cells fail to mature properly into functional blood cells. Diagnosing MDS and assessing its severity is crucial, as it can cause severe anemia and progress to acute myeloid leukemia, one of the most common blood cancers in adults. Until now, diagnosis has been based on taking a bone marrow sample , a procedure that requires local anesthesia and can cause discomfort or pain.

In the new study, a research team led by Dr. Nili Furer, Dr. Nimrod Rappoport, and Dr. Oren Milman, in collaboration with physicians and researchers from Israel and the United States, demonstrated that rare blood stem cells —which occasionally leave the bone marrow and enter the bloodstream—contain diagnostic information about MDS. The researchers showed that with a simple blood test and advanced single-cell genetic sequencing, it is possible to identify early signs of the syndrome and even assess a person's risk of developing blood cancer.

The researchers also discovered that migrating stem cells may serve as a clock for our chronological age , and that in men, their population changes earlier than in women, increasing the risk of cancer. This finding could explain the higher prevalence of blood cancers in men. The scientists believe that using the test to diagnose MDS and leukemia is just the beginning, and that it could be applied to a variety of other hematological disorders in the future. The current findings are already being tested in a large-scale clinical trial at several medical centers around the world.