The journey of a thousand miles begins with 1 step

In this issue of Blood, Reilly et al analyze TERT rare variants in a large cohort of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) enrolled in the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) database. They cloned all variants, quantified their impact on telomere elongation in cell-based assays, and proved their association with inferior post-transplant outcome.(1)