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Maurice Stroun (born September 3, 1926) is a researcher and professor at the University of Geneva known for breakthroughs in the understanding of cell-free DNA associated with neoplasms in plants, animals and in humans. He is considered to be the first to identify tumor specific circulating DNA in the blood of cancer patients.

Career
Together with Philippe Anker, Stroun discovered that the DNA fragments shed by solid tumors could be isolated from a patient's blood an analyzed to identify specific genomic mutations. [1] Stroun and Anker had been studying how cancer metastasizes in plants despite the inability of normal plant cells to circulate. They hypothesized that circulating tumor DNA was the cause of secondary plant cancers [2], creating a new field of inquiry into extra-cellular nucleic acid and leading to further breakthroughs in non-invasive cancer and prenatal diagnostics. [3]