Genetics can be cruel. Lawrence Ingrassia, a longtime journalist, has learned that the hard way.
A genetic mutation that runs in his family predisposes those who carry it to developing malignant tumors of all types. It’s why, at age 69 and 30 days, he became the longest living member of his family.
His brother had died one day short of that mark, his mother at 42, and his two younger sisters at 32 and 24.
Five years ago, after his brother was diagnosed with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare condition, Ingrassia set out on an odyssey to understand the disease and his family’s cancers.
At the 2024 STAT Summit in Boston, he told an audience what he had learned.