He leads or co-leads projects to discover risk alleles for pancreatic cancer and study the evolution to metastasis from primary lung cancer. Of particular interest in recent years is the detection of acquired chromosomal alterations existing at low intra-sample frequencies, such as when a small proportion of the cells in a heterogeneous mixture exhibit these mutations. Dr. Scheet’s lab has helped pioneer methods to more accurately distinguish these alterations using information on the order of inherited alleles on a chromosome, i.e. the haplotypes. This technique, implemented in the software hapLOH has applications in cancer genomics, early detection of cancer, and profiling of normal or pre-disease tissues exposed to carcinogens or aging. Profiles of nonmalignant tissues (premalignant, field cancerization, or putatively healthy) may help us better understand critical molecular changes that occur early in the transformation to disease or malignancy and leverage these mutations as biomarkers for cancer risk, progression, or outcomes.