BRCA1 and BRCA2 in 2005.
Extract: In 1994, Mark Skolnick and his colleagues at Myriad Genetics in Salt Lake City announced that they had identified the BRCA1 (BReast CAncer 1) gene. This effectively put an end to a five-year competition that had been raging among several research groups in North America and Europe -- ultimately it was a private company, and not a university-based research group that prevailed. Only a year later a second breast cancer gene, BRCA2 was identified by competing researchers in England. These discoveries are among the most significant in the field of cancer since 1995 in terms of public interest or scientific impact. By 1991 it was known that a gene like BRCA1 conferred a greatly increased risk of breast cancer among women who were born with a mutation of it -- raising the risk from about 8% in their lifetime to 80% or more. The identification of the gene in 1994 permitted the identification of the actual women who were at high risk. Genetic testing for cancer susceptibility soon followed.
Narod
Steven A
SA
Centre for Research on Women's Health, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.