U.S. patent number 5,654,155 has Murphy's name on it; the correct sequence of the BRCA1 gene is a protected piece of property, part of the brave new world of genetic research. Unsettling? Only to those whose understanding of patents is limited to material inventions, says Murphy.

"The reason you patent something like this is so that there is a standard in the field that everybody can use," she said. "You must have zero tolerance for errors because patients will make decisions--whether to have prophylactic surgery, whether to have kids--based on the information they get." Murphy and Oncormed made the information available to the medical community to prevent sloppy clinical diagnosis of hereditary cancers, she says.

Murphy concedes that obtaining patents to secure proprietary rights to genetic information is controversial and that in the wrong hands genetic patents could delay positive scientific advancements. But patents allow companies to pursue new gene therapies without fear of losing their investments while also ensuring the integrity of the science, she says. "One of the reasons I was able to convince my company to pursue a patent was that the [previously] published sequence for BRCA1 was not correct," she said. "My fear was that women were getting bad information."

In March 1998, in recognition of the revolutionary nature of her work, Intellectual Property Owners, Inc., named Murphy "Inventor of the Year," an honor whose roster of previous winners includes the makers of the Jarvik Seven artificial heart and the developers of protease inhibitors that fight the AIDS virus. More important, Murphy says, women and men with cancer in their families' histories have a new, potent weapon to fight the disease before it strikes.

Without the genetic testing, men or women who carry the BRCA gene mutations would have fewer risk-prevention options and probably would not act until a tumor appeared. By then, medical intervention is less likely to work. But knowing well before any symptoms occur that the cancers may develop, which is what Murphy's test can predict, allows for aggressive surveillance and early detection.

"What the geneticist does is evaluate the pedigree," Murphy said. "If all of the breast cancer is on the father's side it can not be ignored because it can be carried through the father to a daughter. In my particular case the altered gene is likely to be coming through my dad. My grandmother had bilateral breast cancer in her fifties and died of colon cancer because they were not looking for it." The BRCA genes are called "breast cancer" genes, but they are general cancer genes that cause ovarian cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer, according to Murphy.

Dr. David Sidransky, a cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, sees great promise in the use of tests like Murphy's to increase cancer survival rates. Writing in Scientific American, Sidransky noted that genetic testing "will save the most lives in the years to come by making it possible for existing therapies to be applied at the time when they can be most effective."