Professor Mike Stratton led a research team of 41 scientists who identified a second breast cancer gene, BRCA2, which empowered people to understand their risk of developing breast cancer and informed new treatments. Professor Sally Swift – now a lab manager of the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre at ICR – played an important role in the discovery after mastering a complex technique, enabling her to precipitate a vital piece of DNA.
Swift's contribution was recently celebrated through the installation of two commemorative plaques at The Institute of Cancer Research on the two discovery sites in Chelsea and Sutton. The plaques were installed by the global life science company , which recently commissioned research that found a staggering 70% of UK adults don’t know what the BRCA2 gene is.spoke to Sally Swift to find out more about what it was like to be a woman – who also happened to be pregnant – on the groundbreaking research time, why she thinks public awareness about the BRCA2 gene is so low, and how it feels to be celebrated for her efforts.
And then I was very lucky to be on a course that... It was called a sin sandwich course, where you got to do three different work experience placements. I don't know if they exist anymore. So I did six months at uni, six months work, did that for three years, went back, did my final year. And my last placement was here at The Institute of Cancer Research. So I left here, returned to uni, did my finals, applied for jobs, and wrote back to the institute for a reference.
Everybody's got that gene, and it normally helps to suppress cell growth. The discovery we made is that a tiny change or mutation, as we call it, in that gene gives people a much higher risk of getting breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer.