kConFab (the Kathleen Cuningham Foundation Consortium for Research into Familial Breast Cancer) brings together geneticists, clinicians, surgeon, genetic counsellors, psychosocial researchers, pathologists and epidemiologists from all over Australia and New Zealand.
We believe that the causes and consequences of familial predisposition to breast cancer can be understood only by a concerted national effort at both the basic and clinical level.
Genetic, epidemiological, medical and psychosocial data collected from these families by kConFab nurses and researchers are stored in a de-identified fashion in a central relational database. Biospecimens collected from family members are used to characterise germline mutations in predisposing genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2. kConFab has accumulated data on more than 1400 multi-generational, multi-case kindreds. At present, kConFab is supplying biological specimens and data to more than 100 research projects worldwide.
