In 2014, Diana visited our genetics clinic in Texas. She was only in her early 40s, but her mother had died of breast cancer at 42, and two of her aunts had received the same diagnosis at young ages. As we tested her for a panel of breast cancer gene mutations, she joked about her Irish heritage, of which she was clearly proud. But we discovered that Diana carried an Ashkenazi Jewish BRCA1 mutation that predisposed her to breast and ovarian cancer. During World War II, it turned out, her French Jewish family converted to Catholicism and made Ireland their home. Nobody had told her.
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