Alcohol Boosts Cancer Risk by Damaging Stem Cell DNA

Alcohol consumption is known to raise the risk of certain cancers, but exactly how alcohol causes cells to stagger toward malignant fates is often unclear. To find ways of keeping cells on the straight and narrow, scientists based at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, used mice to show how alcohol exposure leads to permanent genetic damage. In particular, the scientists found that acetaldehyde, an endogenous and alcohol-derived metabolite, can break and damage DNA within blood stem