Gruber genetics prize goes to cancer researcher King

The US$200,000 Peter Gruber Prize in Genetics for 2004 has been awarded to Mary-Claire King, the University of Washington geneticist who paved the way for the identification of the BRCA1 hereditary breast and ovarian cancer gene in 1994.

King spent 15 years at Berkeley studying the genetics of breast cancer, which she was convinced must have a hereditary component, even while her colleagues remained sceptical. During a late evening talk at the 1990 American Society of Human Genetics conference in Cincinnati, she presented data showing that a gene mutation on chromosome 17 predisposed women in some families to breast (and ovarian) cancer. King then collaborated with NHGRI director Francis Collins to isolate the gene, only to be beaten narrowly by researchers from Myriad Genetics.

But King's contributions to genetics go far beyond her work in cancer genetics. Together with the late Allan Wilson, she presented data in the early 1970s showing that humans and chimps are 99 per cent identical at the genetic level. Her colleagues have also made important contributions in the study of hereditary deafness and HIV.

Perhaps of most long-lasting importance, she has made a long-standing commitment to applying genetic analysis to help reunite families divided during the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and early 1980s. Hundreds of children were abducted from the families of political dissidents by the Argentinian military. Using forensic techniques such as mitochondrial DNA typing, King has helped the 'Abuelas' -- the grandmothers of the orphaned children -- to be reunited with the children of the 'disappeared'.

Last year's Gruber genetics prize, which was awarded at the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne, went to Prof David Botstein of Stanford.

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