Mina J. Bissell, Ph.D
Director, Life Sciences Division
Faculty, Comparative Biochemistry, UC Berkeley
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, California
mjbissell@lbl.gov

Biosketch
Dr. Bissell is a world recognized leader in the area of the role of extracellular matrix (ECM) and microenvironment in regulation of tissue-specific function with special emphasis in breast cancer. She earned an A.B. with honors in chemistry from Radcliffe/Harvard College and a Ph.D. in bacterial genetics from Harvard University in 1969.  She was a Milton Fellow at Harvard and an American Cancer Society Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology at U.C. Berkeley.  Dr. Bissell joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a staff biochemist in 1972. She became a Senior Scientist in 1977 and the Director of Cell & Molecular Biology in 1988.  She was appointed director of the Life Sciences Division (including Cell and Molecular Biology) in 1992.  Dr. Bissell has authored more than 200 publications and has received numerous awards and citations.  She was a Fogarty Fellow in 1984, a Guggenheim fellow in 1992 and was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1994. She received the 1996 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award and medal, the highest honor of the US Department of Energy.  In 1997, she was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and served as President of the American Society for Cell Biology.  In 1998, she received the Mellon Award from the University of Pittsburgh and was the 1999 recipient of the Eli Lilly/Clowes Award of the American Association for Cancer Research. Dr. Bissell has given numerous distinguished and named lectures, and is currently the President of the International Society of Differentiation. In 2001 she received both an honorary doctorate from the Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris and the “Innovator Award” of the US Army breast cancer program. ). In 2002 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Presentation Title: The structural basis of tissue specificity: the role of extracellular matrix in polarity apoptosis and breast cancer.