Creighton University Dr Henry Lynch Earns National Award for Lifetime Work in Hereditary Cancer

"Lynch has long been considered a pioneer in the field of hereditary cancer research and prevention. As an internal medicine resident in the 1960s, Lynch met patients who had many family members who were affected by or had died from the same type of cancer; he hypothesized the cancer could be triggered by hereditary factors. That launched a lifelong pursuit to uncover genetic links to certain types of cancer that, at the time, his peers thought to be triggered almost solely by environmental causes.

In the 1970s, Lynch was the first to describe a hereditary breast ovarian cancer syndrome, findings that led to the identification of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 germline mutations that predispose women to this syndrome. Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC), the most common form of hereditary colorectal cancer, is named after him as the Lynch syndrome."