Genetic Causes of Myeloma

Check out the action going on inside a cell's nucleus.

Stem cells found in the bone marrow are crucial for our health because they are needed to become new blood cells that sustain and protect our bodies. But when the transformation goes wrong, harmful mutations can cause the cells to start replicating without control -- a type of cancer known as leukemia.

Across a wide variety of cancer types, a protein called KRAS can get hyperactivated and transmit an overload of unwanted growth signals to the cells, causing them to divide and form a tumor.