Michele Carbone and colleagues, from the University of Hawaii, discovered that members of 4 families, apparently unrelated and living in different US States, shared the identical mutation of a gene called BAP1 that is associated with a higher incidence of mesothelioma, melanoma, renal carcinoma and other cancers. Through genetic and genealogical studies, it was demonstrated that the families were related, and that they descended from a couple that immigrated to the USA from Germany in the early 1700s.
