BRCA1 and cancer: It is noteworthy that even for genetic predisposition syndromes that confer the highest probability of developing cancer such as those resulting from inherited dysfunction of BRCA1/2 (predisposing to breast and ovarian cancers) and mismatch repair genes (e.g., Lynch syndrome), a significant proportion of patients (30–40%) do not develop cancer by the age of 70 (Antoniou and Easton, 2006).