A new scholarship at the Perelman School of Medicine, funded by members of the Advisory Board of Penn Medicine's Basser Center for BRCA, paves the way for greater diversity in the field of genetic counseling.

A new study from Penn Medicine and the Basser Center finds Black and white women have the same gene mutations linked to breast cancer risk. The findings challenge past, smaller studies that found Black women face a greater genetic risk.

Basser Young Leadership Council co-founder Erika Stallings shares the story of her BRCA journey with Very Well Health.

A meta-analysis of nearly 200,000 men revealed 22 new genetic locations that could be susceptible to inherited testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT) — a 40 percent increase in the number of regions known to be associated with the cancer. The multi-institutional meta-analysis was led by Basser Director of Genetics, Katherine L. Nathanson, MD.

Findings to be presented during a plenary session at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting show that a PARP inhibitor significantly reduced the risk that breast cancer would return when given to patients with the BRCA mutation. Basser Executive Director Susan Domchek, MD, serves as lead investigator of the Penn trial. 

Susan Domchek, MD, Basser Executive Director, was featured in a story about Latinas and BRCA mutations. Despite the high prevalence of the mutations, awareness of hereditary cancer risks and genetic testing is low among this group, limiting their options for early treatment, she said.

Many pancreatic cancer patients with BRCA and PALB2 mutations saw their tumors stop growing or shrink substantially after being switched from chemotherapy to the PARP inhibitor rucaparib, according to results from a clinical trial led by Basser Center researchers.

Susan Domchek, MD, Basser Center Executive Director, was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article that profiled a woman’s experience with genetic testing and a surprising family tree that led her to make decisions about her cancer care.

Philly Voice highlights our Black & BRCA initiative, which launched last fall to help raise  awareness about genetic testing in the Black community. 

In an op-ed, Basser Director of Genetics Katherine L. Nathanson, MD, joined other Penn physicians in offering strategies to “nudge” oncologists to overcome race as a heuristic in decision-making.

Basser researcher Kim Reiss Binder, MD, was featured in a series of videos on the latest in pancreatic cancer research and therapies, discussing immunotherapies, early detection, and metastatic disease.

Basser Executive Director Susan Domchek, MD, was quoted in a story on the ambiguity of certain genetic tests and how “variants of unknown significance” (VUS) can guide cancer treatments, despite a lack of evidence to support those decisions.