If one gene is mutated, a duplicate gene may function in its place.
Genentech's breast cancer drug Herceptin works only in women whose cancer has a particular mutated gene.
At this point, a woman can undergo the more complex genetic test to confirm the presence of the mutated gene.
Crucially for Dr DePinho's project, the development of vemurafenib was stimulated by the identification of a mutated gene often present in melanomas.
It has taken over 10 years since the role of the mutated gene was identified for the technology to identify it in stools to be developed.
Wong (now at Stanford University) figured the mutated gene might make an ideal target for a vaccine, as it creates an abnormal protein not seen in healthy cells.
They said that the high rate of body fat among the relatives of carriers of the mutated gene suggested that mutations by themselves did not account for obesity.
She urged her only daughter, Katie, to be tested before she left for college, and they were told by genetic councilors that Katie, too, carried the mutated gene.
Heidi Kilgariff, 35, from Bracknell, had the operation because she has the same mutated BRCA1 gene as Hollywood star Angelina Jolie.
Only 25% of patients have the mutated cancer gene that Herceptin targets.
Twenty-two years ago Francis Collins, who would go on to head the Human Genome Project and run the National Institutes of Health, was part of a team that found the gene that, when mutated, caused cystic fibrosis, a deadly childhood disease in which the lungs fill with mucus and the pancreas does not make digestive enzymes.
They found that the gene that codes for GPR54 was mutated in all those who had failed to reach puberty.
The mutated form of a gene called complement factor H may cause the immune system to go awry, resulting in too much inflammation in the eye.
Mutated versions of the gene are believed to be responsible for up to a third of cases of breast cancer in families with a history of the disease.
Roger Tsien, a professor at University of California in San Diego, mutated and otherwise altered the GFP gene to produce various colors.
Almost a decade ago, Leonard Guarente at Massachusetts Institute of Technology found a gene called SIR2 in brewer's yeast that, when mutated, seemed to extend the yeast's life.
Among families with parkin mutations, 13 had at least one member with mutations on both copies of the gene, while in 10 families affected members had a single mutated copy of parkin.
The theory behind targeted cancer drugs is simple: find the key gene mutations driving growth of tumors and then devise drugs that block those mutated proteins.
If at least one of the newly selected tumours also had a mutated version of one of the genes in question, that gene was reckoned a good candidate as a tumour-causing gene.
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