I've had a number of patent applications reach provisional stage, but until this one on prospective BRCA1-based breast cancer therapeutics, I hadn't had one reach approved, full patent stage.  It's not so much that the other ones were without merit; rather the attrition process is more related to the durability of an idea (the process is usually drawn out over a fair bit of time, which can test the commitment of the original authors) as well as institutional investment (the combination of filing fees and the cost of experts involved in helping to assemble the application can run well into $five figures$).  Anyway, I should give credit primarily to the coauthors on the application (their idea, I merely provided analysis to bolster it), but it's nonetheless satisfying to see resolution on a large-scale endeavor of this sort.