Follow up on the BRCA article 10/30/08 about Genetic Technologies & Genetic Testing
BRCA NEWSWORTHY
Further clarifications on BRCA testing
From The Sydney Morning Herald smh.com.au 10/31/08 follow this link: http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/previewDocument.ac?docID=GCA00898652GTG
After the recent media attention of the company & its exclusivity to the BRCA genetic testing possibly hindering further research & therefore possible cures for BRCA positive people, the company had clarifications. Please follow the link to get it from the source! Basically the company says that the patent exclusivity is for diagnosis & not research-they are not impeding research. They are also holding their prices the same for the coming year.
BRCA & Breast Cancer research article from The Jewish Daily forward.com 10/30/08
BRCA NEWSWORTHY
Scientific Advances Looking to Stop “Cancer Gene”
By Nathaniel Popper
Follow this link for the entire story: http://www.forward.com/articles/14478/
The past 10 years researchers have identified BRCA positive patients & have treated them prophylactically. Now science is going in another direction & they want to know how the gene causes cancer & how it can be prevented. An Australian researcher by the name of Georgia Chenevix-Trench is one of the leaders of this research. There is also a research team being run out of New York University called the Jewish Women’s Breast & Ovarian Cancer Genetics study (from the Jewish Women’s Foundation). The want to know why some BRCA positive women get cancer & some do not & how this cancer process can be stopped- they have a team collecting DNA samples (spit samples-instead of blood) from older Jewish women (at Hadassah lunches & book clubs.) Harry Ostrer is the lead geneticist of this study. Both these researchers are collecting & analyzing these BRCA genes to find out what the BRCA positive women who don’t get breast cancer have that the women who get breast cancer don’t have! Yet at the University of Chicago’s Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics researcher Olufunmilayo Olopade (overseer of drug trials) they are testing a drug that can target defective cells caused by the BRCA gene mutation. Also new, researchers can look at an entire genetic code rather than just a single site. This enables doctors to see whether other genes might interact with the BRCA genes to cause cancer. Another ambitious study is going on at the University of Cambridge called the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 or CIMBA. Here they are hoping to find the genes that decrease the prevalence of BRCA positive people getting cancer. The researchers hope that these discoveries will also aid other areas of cancer research.