The researchers have developed a blood test capable of detecting cancers, the ways cancer resists treatments and tissue injury caused by non-cancerous conditions.

The new test analyzes RNA molecules in the bloodstream. This type of RNA is called cell-free RNA because the tiny molecules no longer inhabit a cell. There are always fragments of both DNA and RNA floating in blood — byproducts of natural cell death from all types of tissues and organs throughout the body, including cancerous tumors.

The researchers spent more than six years developing novel methods to target messenger RNA in blood and then used it to identify the presence of cancers at different stages, to track resistance to cancer treatment, and to monitor severity of injury to healthy tissue.