New genetic clues to breast and ovarian cancer

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 55, No. 5, June 2013, Pages 233-234 News

A major international study has found that gene sequence differences crucial to the maintenance of our chromosomes’ integrity predispose us to certain cancers. 

Angela Brooks-Wilson, an associate professor in SFU’s biomedical physiology and kinesiology department and a Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency, is one of more than 600 scientists around the world who contributed to this study. 

The study, entitled “Multiple independent variants at the TERT locus are associated with telomere length and risks of breast and ovarian cancer,” is published in Nature Genetics.

Study data show that variations in the sequencing of the TERT gene, which encodes an enzyme crucial to telomere maintenance, influence telo­mere length and our risk of getting breast and ovarian cancers. 

Telomeres encapsulate chromosome ends and shorten in length over our lifespan, potentially exposing chro­mosomal ends, which can lead to genetic damage and cancer. It is estimated that up to 80% of telomere-length variation is inherited, and this study is the first to connect that inheritance to predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer. 

The study can be viewed at www.nature.com/ng/journal/v45/n4/full/ng.2566.html.

. New genetic clues to breast and ovarian cancer. BCMJ, Vol. 55, No. 5, June, 2013, Page(s) 233-234 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply