When I was little, we used to collect the lids off of yogurts with pink ribbons on them and mail them…somewhere. That may have been the first time I became aware of breast cancer. This year is my first Breast Cancer Awareness Month having actually had breast cancer. I...
Hi there! I’m Caitlin, the Marketing and Communications Manager here at My Gene Counsel. One year ago this month, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 33. The irony is not lost on me that my job at a healthcare tech startup focused on accurate and timely...
Originally published February 29, 2016 Lynch syndrome is an autosomal dominant condition. This means that a person who carries one copy of a mutation in any of the genes known to cause Lynch syndrome is at increased risk to develop multiple adult-onset cancers,...
The majority of melanomas are a combination of environmental and sporadic factors. However, approximately 10% of all melanomas are inherited. Could the melanoma in my family be hereditary? These factors increase the likelihood that melanoma is hereditary: Some family...
What does autism have to do with hereditary cancer? In most cases, nothing. But in honor of Autism Awareness Month, we want to highlight the connection between having a mutation (also known as a pathogenic variant) in a gene called PTEN and an increased likelihood of...
We’ve come a long way in cancer awareness over the past half century. Most of us now know that cancer is not contagious, right? Correct. But, in fact, you can acquire a common virus, the Human Papilloma Virus, which increases your chance to develop certain...