Citation | Michael Stratton is distinguished for his contributions to the genetics of human cancer. Using genetic linkage studies and positional cloning, he mapped and isolated the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2 and subsequently other cancer predisposition genes: CYLD and STK11. To provide a new approach to find cancer genes he promoted the notion of large scale systematic seraches of the human genome for somatic mutations in cancer and initiated the Cancer Genome Project leading to the discovery of BRAF as a melanoma gene. His work has important implications for the understanding of the genetic mechanisms underlying cancer, diagnosis and therapy. |