BRIP1 and Fanconi anemia: FANCJ belongs to the Fanconi anemia pathway and bi-allelic mutations of the encoding gene are known to cause the disease, which is characterized by hematopoietic stem cell defects, progressive bone marrow failure, genomic instability and cancer predisposition (Bridge et al, 2005; Levran et al, 2005; Levitus et al, 2005; Litman et al, 2005).