Scientists discover breast cancer gene

Women with a faulty version of a gene called BRIP1 have an increased risk of developing breast cancer, according to the results of a Cancer Research UK funded Cancer Conference and published in Nature Genetics.

Scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research studied the BRIP1 gene in 1,212 women with breast cancer who had a family history of the disease that was not due to the known breast cancer genes, BRCA1 or BRCA2. They compared these women to 2,081 healthy people and found nine BRIP1 faults (mutations) in the breast cancer patients but only two in the healthy individuals. This indicates that the gene is linked to breast cancer more often than would be expected by chance.

The team worked out that carrying a faulty version of BRIP1 doubled a women's risk of the disease - taking their risk by the age of 70 from one in 12 to around one in six. This discovery could help identify women at increased risk of developing breast cancer, allowing preventative measures to be undertaken and leading to better diagnosis and more tailored treatment in the future.