After discovering a suspicious lump in her breast one day while in the shower, Abby Match was diagnosed in August with an aggressive form of breast cancer. She subsequently underwent a bilateral mastectomy, a hysterectomy, chemotherapy and radiation.

It was only after she discovered she was sick that Match, 35, learned she was a carrier of a mutation in her BRCA1 gene - associated with a significantly elevated risk for developing breast cancer at a young age, and also for ovarian and other cancers. One in 40 Ashkenazi Jews have a BRCA mutation, which is 10 times higher than in the general p...