Many people have heard of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes because of their association with breast cancer. But scientists have now suggested that many of the genetic variants we are born with, in a variety of different genes, can make a powerful prediction about what type of breast cancer an individual could develop, and what the outcome could be. This study has indicated that random genetic variants that are acquired over a lifetimes are far less important to breast cancer risk compared to those a person is born with; the findings have been published in Science.

“Apart from a few highly penetrant genes that confer significant cancer risk, the role of heredity factors remains poorly understood, and most malignancies are assumed to result from random errors during cell division or bad luck,” said senior study author Christina Curtis, PhD, a Professor at Stanford University. While that would make it seem like random events cause the growth of tumors, this is not what’s been observed. Instead, tumor development is influence by immunity and genetics, said Curtis. “This new result unearths a new class of biomarkers to forecast tumor progression and an entirely new way of understanding breast cancer origins.”