Content courtesy of Ivanhoe

One out of ten women with breast or ovarian cancer can blame their disease on their genes. An experimental drug is making huge strides in tackling these types of hereditary cancers. A new approach to treatment is targeting the genes behind the cancer.

It's a milestone they shared together … Greer Shellow celebrated her bat mitzvah and her grandmother lived to see it.

"You want to be able to see everything that they do … the bat mitzvah, the graduations, the graduations from college -- maybe not the marriages because they wait too long these days," Barbara Shellow told Ivanhoe.

Over the past decade, she's battled breast and a form of ovarian cancer.

"I'll have to get through this because I've got the family that I want to see grow up," Barbara said.

Barbara had a genetic profile done. It revealed a defect that predisposes her to cancer. The defect was found in genes called BRCA 1 and BRCA 2. Up to 80 percent of women with the problem will get cancer because their abnormal cells cannot repair damaged DNA.

Non-specific treatment like chemotherapy kills both cancer cells and healthy ones, but an investigational drug works by only targeting the tumor, allowing normal cells to do their job and fix tainted DNA.

"This is an example, I think, of the most exciting development in cancer therapy," William Audeh, M.D., a medical oncologist at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., told Ivanhoe.

Nearly 60 percent of the women responded well to the drug and many saw their cancer go away.

"Some of these women have been in remission for over a year -- something that would not be possible with any available chemotherapy," Dr. Audeh explained.

After a year-and-a-half of treatment, Barbara is cancer-free, and gladly takes the pills over chemo.

"This is the longest remission that I've ever been in," she said.

She hopes she hasn't passed on the cancer gene, but if she does, this could be the answer to her family disease.

People with ovarian cancer and the BRCA defect can still enroll in the last stage of the drug trial at medical centers across the country, and a trial involving breast cancer patients will start soon. Doctors are hopeful the drug will be available to the public within two years. Researchers are using the design of this pill to also target other diseases with underlying genetic defects.