Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994                   TAG: 9409150028
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

INHERITED BREAST CANCER GENE ISOLATED

More than a dozen research facilities around the world have been working to pinpoint the gene, called BRCA1, which is believed to cause 5 percent of breast cancer cases.

Winners in the race were researchers at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, along with others at Myriad Genetics Corp. and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, NBC said.

The staff at the journal Science was reviewing two papers summarizing the discovery, NBC said. Publication would signal approval of their findings. NBC said it was told that will happen within weeks.

Researchers who declined to appear on camera reportedly believe isolating the gene will lead to a blood test within two years to identify women who carry the gene.

The American Cancer Society says 182,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States each year, and 46,000 die.

Experts have said women with the altered gene have about a 60-percent chance of developing breast cancer before age 50 and an 85-percent chance by age 65.