Inside every cell in every human body there’s a very special gene, called BRCA1, that regulates how fast cells can divide—and a simple mutation within it can be all that’s required for us to develop cancer.
BRCA1—the short name for ‘breast cancer 1, early onset’—is essentially a tumor suppressor: when it functions correctly, it controls the rate of replication of cells; when it goes wrong, cells can reproduce way faster, which is the fundamental way that cancer tumors grow. This video explains how BRCA1 works—or doesn’t. [TED-Ed]
