Andrea Downing

About Me

Andrea Downing is a BRCActivist. When she was 25 years old, she discovered that she has up to an 87% lifetime risk of having breast cancer and up to a 60% lifetime risk of ovarian cancer when she tested positive for a BRCA1 deleterious gene mutation. This mutation was passed from her great grandmother to her grandmother to her mother and now to Andrea. Her great grandmother and grandmother died because of this mutation, and her mother was diagnosed with Stage 3 Cancer in her early thirties.

This has been an exciting and turbulent year in the world of BRCA. In April, Andrea stood at the steps of the Supreme Court to tell her story as oral arguments were heard in Association of Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. This case made history when the right to patent human DNA was overturned 9-0 by the Supreme Court. Now she serves on the steering committee of a project called Free The Data.

Title: Founder

Company/Affiliation: Brave Bosom LLC

Twitter: @BraveBosom

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