Second Breast Cancer Ge...( ugh important in increasing our underst...)

ugh important in increasing our understanding of breast cancer, there are still crucial parts of the jigsaw left to piece together," said Gordon McVie, scientific director of the Cancer Research Campaign in the United Kingdom. "Next, we will go on to examine both the function of the gene and the consequences of gene damage. Simultaneously, we will explore the role of the gene in non-family breast cancers."

Futreal has had a hand in the discovery of both breast cancer genes. As a member of the Skolnick team, he cloned BRCA1 last year.

"The Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center is very pleased to have been a part of the international efforts that discovered both of the breast cancer genes," said Dr. O. Michael Colvin, director of the cancer center. "We look forward to helping put this discovery to use as we develop better therapies and prevention strategies to protect all women from this disease."

Dr. Eric Winer, the co-director of Duke's multidisciplinary breast program, said the localization of BRCA2 "paves the way for genetic testing for both BRCA1 and BRCA2." While BRCA1 testing is not yet commercially available, Winer and other physicians at Duke have been using a test for that gene in an experimental program to evaluate how best to counsel at-risk women.

Because having a mutated copy of either BRCA1 or BRCA2 could make it difficult to obtain insurance or employment, it is important to couple testing with counseling and support services, Rimer said.

As the medical community learns to deal with BRCA1 and BRCA2, Futreal, Stratton and a host of other researchers will be trying to answer the many remaining questions about hereditary breast cancers.

"Is there a BRCA3?" Futreal asked. "There is a group of families that cannot be attributed to either BRCA1 or BRCA2. Now we need to discover whether there is one gene, or a cluster of unrelated mutations, behind those ca
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Contact: David Rice
rice0014@mc.duke.edu
Duke University
29-Apr-1996


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