A global consortium of scientists including four Korean researchers have discovered a gene variant that they say offers modest protection against breast cancer.

The Breast Cancer Association Consortium led by a research team from Britain’s Sheffield University said on Monday that they found that women with a particular form of the caspase-eight gene run a roughly ten-percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to those without the variant. It is the first time a common gene has been linked to the disease.

Some 20 research teams around the world participated in the work including National Cancer Center chief Yoo Keun-young and three other Korean scientists.

The consortium said that everyone has the gene, but 25 percent of women of European descent have a mutated variation which gives them some protection.

Their findings appear in the February edition of the journal Nature Genetics.