Hey girl.

You probably either loved or hated La La Land. But can we all at least agree the entire movie hinges on one critical point: is Ryan Gosling really playing the piano? Cancer biology has a similar conundrum. It’s known that BRCA1-BARD1 play a central role in homologous recombination (HR), but it isn’t completely clear if they are directly or indirectly involved (the proverbial CGI hands). BRCA2 is known to facilitate the replacement of RPA by RAD51 on single stranded DNA ends. However, it’s unclear if BRCA1-BARD1 act upstream or downstream of this event. Last week’s Nature pub demonstrates that BRCA1-BARD1 are directly involved in HR and act downstream of BRCA2 by binding RAD51 and facilitating strand invasion. The editorial is also a great overview of HR. So now we know BRCA1 is the real deal...but we’re going to have to leave you hanging on Gosling’s piano hands.