Assistant Professor, Joint with Cancer
Center, College of Human MedicineOur research interests focus on the role played by the estrogen receptor (ER) in breast tumor cell growth. One aspect of this work involves an investigation of ER mRNA splicing variants and their ability to modulate the expression of estrogen-responsive genes in breast tumor cells.Our current thinking is centered on “non-classical” pathways for regulation of transcription that are independent of direct DNA binding and, instead, involve association of ER with other transcription factors such as AP-1 and Sp1. Other projects under development includeexploiting gene expression data from public databases to identify novel serum markers for breast cancer and exploring new techniques for targeted gene disruption in somatic cells, with the goal of permitting functional analysis of important regulatory proteins in their natural cell context.