Such candidate gene approaches revealed that germline mutations of TP53[7], PTEN[8], ATM[9], CHEK2[10], BRIP1[11], PALB2[12], NBS1[13] and RAD50[14] are correlated with breast cancer risk, but to a much more moderate extent than BRCA1 and BRCA2. Therefore, new unbiased genomic approaches are needed for identifying genetic factors that influence breast cancer susceptibility. Here, CHEK2 is linked to breast carcinoma.