US cancer research pioneer to give talk in Dublin

GENETIC technologies are developing to the point where diseases such as breast cancer will be DNA profiled to determine an individual’s best treatment options. It means the patient will receive a personalised medical response to their condition, says the discoverer of the first breast-cancer gene.

“A woman can determine as a young adult whether she is susceptible to breast cancer and she can take action to enormously reduce her risk,” states Prof Mary-Claire King, the American Cancer Society professor of medicine and genomic sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

And these options will also be available for women who may be unaware of a family predisposition to breast or ovarian cancers. This is because researchers are learning a great deal about the nature of gene mutations that can lead to cancers, she says.

King comes to Dublin next week to deliver a free public lecture at Trinity College, entitled, Genetics and Breast Cancer– progress in personalised medicine. She will also be presented with the Trinity College Dawson Prize in Genetics for genetics researchers that have made an outstanding research contribution of world importance.

Advances in personalised medicine are often driven by advances in the genetic technologies, King says. “With next generation sequencing we will soon have, for many illnesses, the identity of the genes [responsible] and the mutations associated with them.”

King is the researcher who in 1990 while at UC Berkeley identified the first gene known to be associated with many breast and ovarian cancers. This was later named the BRCA1 gene and its discovery revolutionised the study of many other common diseases associated with mutations of crucial genes.

She also had a role in identifying the BRCA2 gene, yet another key gene associated with breast and ovarian cancers. Although we now know of 11 or 12 genes linked to these cancers, the two BRCA genes remain the most important contributors to disease.

In her talk next week, King will describe how it had been recognised 150 years ago that some families seemed far more susceptible to these diseases than others. When it comes to breast cancer, "family matters", King told The Irish Times.

“The risk that a woman will die of breast cancer is two-fold higher if her mother died of breast cancer,” she says.

After graduating with a degree in mathematics, she was encouraged to switch to genetics. She became interested in how a person’s genes might make them predisposed to disease.

It was clear that familial inheritance was at work. “If this is true, the proof will be in being able to say here is the DNA sequence responsible for the problem,” she says, adding that little did she realise that DNA research would dominate her working life.

King has studied the thousands of mutations associated with the BRCA1 and 2 genes and believes a better understanding of these variations will help identify the most appropriate treatment for an individual patient.

The Dawson Prize commemorates George Dawson, who founded Trinity’s Department of Genetics in 1950. The recipient must give a public lecture and also spend a day in discussion with students of genetics.

King will receive a maquette in gold of The Double Helixby artist Brian King (no relation). The Dawson prize was first awarded in 2006 to John Sulston, Nobel Laureate.

King’s talk is free and open to the public. It takes place on April 7th at 7pm in the Edmund Burke Theatre, Arts Building at Trinity.