Patent ID: 7863001

Claim:
A method for classifying a cell sample as BRCA1-related or sporadic, comprising (i) calculating a measure of first similarity between a first expression profile and a BRCA1 template and a second measure of similarity between said first expression profile and a non-BRCA1 template; said first expression profile comprising the expression levels of a first plurality of genes in said cell sample; said BRCA1 template comprising, for each gene in said first plurality of genes, the average expression level of said gene in a plurality of BRCA1 patients; and said non-BRCA1 template comprising, for each gene in said first plurality of genes, the average expression level of said gene in a plurality of non-BRCA1 patients, said first plurality of genes consisting of at least 5 of the genes for which markers are listed in Table 4; (ii) classifying said cell sample as BRCA1 if said first expression profile has a higher similarity to said BRCA1 template than to said non-BRCA1 template, or classifying said cell sample as sporadic if said first expression profile has a higher similarity to said non-BRCA1 template than to said BRCA1 template; and wherein all steps are performed by a suitably programmed computer.