Smoking is the No. 1 cause of lung cancer. Yet, about 20% of lung cancers deaths occur in people who have never smoked, according to the American Cancer Society. Researchers here at MD Anderson, and across the U.S., are working to understand how and why lung cancer develops in non-smokers.

“We know that nonsmokers have a very different landscape of genetic changes in their cancer than smokers do,” says Humam Kadara, Ph.D. “It’s...