11.   A newly discovered cancer gene may be much less important than it originally seemed, some molecular biologists say.

12.   A person with a cancer gene may be prevented from getting health insurance coverage, as an example.

13.   A woman who wants to know if she has a breast cancer gene, for example, can simply have her own DNA tested.

14.   But nobody is arguing that cancers are always genetically linked in the sense that cancer genes are always inherited and transmitted along with other familial genes, Loeb said.

15.   But the breast and colon cancer genes were different.

16.   But the cancer genes seem to be the same, whether a person is born with one or acquires one through an unfortunate mutation later in life.

17.   But, researchers say, women should think carefully about whether they want to be tested for the breast cancer genes.

18.   For years, a number of distinguished scientists furiously raced to become the first to discover a breast cancer gene.

19.   Genes make proteins, but many proteins made by cancer genes are not yet known.

20.   Future treatment, he said, will involve drugs that selectively kill cells with a particular defect in a breast cancer gene.