Dr. Mary-Claire King

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417 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 25 May

Dr. Mary-Claire King’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Science Friday · A trailblazing geneticist reflects on her life and work · 25 May 2026 podcast

We're already well beyond the way you stated that.

You stated it correctly.

There's certainly genetic testing available now for mutations in BRCA1.

There's genetic testing now available for mutations in all

of the known genes responsible for inherited predisposition.

Genomic sequencing is now a product.

It's now, in the time we've been having this conversation,

Here at UW, hundreds of thousands, probably millions of base pairs have been being sequenced for various projects.

I mean, it's done very, very routinely in many labs, obviously, including mine.

And that testing is available not only to patients who have a family history, because bear in mind that since men and women have the same genes and men can pass mutations to their daughters as easily as women can,

About half of women who have inherited predisposition to breast cancer have inherited the mutation that's responsible from their father, who's unaffected.

So about half the women who turn out to have mutations in these genes don't have any family history that would trigger concern.

So from my point of view, every woman, every woman,

at about age 30, regardless of her personal history, regardless of her family history, should be offered testing for all of the known breast and ovarian cancer genes.

There are tens of thousands of different mutations and new mutations are discovered all the time.

That's no longer an impediment.

Of course it was originally, but it's not any longer because sequencing is such high quality and so inexpensive.

So from the point of view of my personal favorite project, we should be offering every woman complete sequencing of all the known breast and ovarian cancer genes.

as part of normal gynecologic practice when she's around 30.

It's a good thing to do.

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