The discovery of the BRCA2 gene revolutionised breast cancer testing – but what was it like to be a woman on the research team?

The discovery was hugely important. And I don’t think I realized at the time just how massive this was, or how massive it would be. Obviously, discovering the gene was a major scientific breakthrough, which allowed families with a history of breast cancer to receive genetic testing, and to be assessed for future risk, allowing them to make some pretty massive decisions in their life. 

In my early thirties in 1995, I was just working in a lab like a maniac. And I was working with a man called Professor Alan Ashworth, who was my team leader. He was key to helping the team find this gene. 

I basically spent years and years and years working with him, cloning different genes. And then I remember, I think it was April of ’95, he was going off to India to do some big trip. And he came into the lab and he goes, “Hey, Sal, I want you to prepare this bit of DNA, because there’s a big project coming up. I want you to do… It’s really, really hard. I don’t know if you’ll manage it, if you can do it.”

So I worked really, really hard on this, but two weeks into it I started to feel really tired and really sick. And I was going, “Uh-oh, goodness.” Actually, I was pregnant, but I carried on, carried on doing the work. And then he came back in about June I called him in and I said, “Alan, I’ve got something to tell you.” He goes, “Oh, did you manage to do that bit of work?” I said, “I did, Alan.” He goes, “Oh, well done.” I said, “But there is something a bit bigger going on in my life.”

I just remember his face. He wanted to smile. He wanted to be really excited for me, but it was like, “Oh, no. She’s not going to be well.” But actually, it didn’t affect it. I carried on working really, really right up to the bitter end. Yeah. So we claimed the gene, big press release, all very exciting. Christmas came, New Year’s Day came, I went into labour, I had my son.

Wow.

A while later, I got invited to this big event about the BRCA2 gene in London. A lady stood up, she was about my age at the time, so in her early thirties. And she was saying that because we’d found the gene she’d been tested and was found not to have the mutation.  She was all geared up to have the prophylactic surgery. And then she said, “I don’t have to have it now. And better still, I know I haven’t passed that on to my daughters.” That really brought home to me just how massive the discovery was.