Yesterday Angelina Jolie revealed in a brave and candid op-ed in the New York Times that she underwent a preventative double mastectomy earlier this year after discovering that she carried a “faulty” gene that placed her at an increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. The faulty genes referenced in Ms. Jolie’s article are called BRCA1 and BRCA2 and are currently a source of dispute in the medical research community. Ms. Jolie’s article comes in the wake of oral argument last month before the Supreme Court in Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., et al. (Docket 12-398) regarding the right to patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.
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