|
| |
2006 ASIP
KEYNOTE LECTURE:
Modeling Cancer in
Three Dimensions In Vitro
 Joan S. Brugge, PhD
Professor and Chair
Dept of Cell Biology
Harvard Med Sch
240 Longwood Ave
Boston, MA 02115
joan_brugge@hms.harvard.edu
Dr. Brugge's Website
Joan S. Brugge is the
Chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, which she
joined in July, 1997. Previously, she was the Scientific Director of ARIAD
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in Cambridge, MA. From 1989 to 1992, Dr. Brugge was a
Professor of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 1979 to 1988,
Dr. Brugge was on the faculty of Stony Brook University, most recently as
Professor of Microbiology. She received her Ph.D. in Virology from Baylor
College of Medicine and completed postdoctoral research at the University of
Colorado Medical Center.
The
research in the Brugge laboratory is currently focused on two areas of
investigation. The first area involves studies of the processes involved in the
initiation and progression of breast cancer, using a three-dimensional basement
membrane model in which mammary epithelial cells can organize into structures
resembling breast glands in vivo. Dr. Brugge’s group is investigating the
mechanisms that regulate normal morphogenesis and how oncogenes and genes
associated with breast cancer perturb these processes, leading to events that
resemble initiation and progression of tumors in vivo. The second area includes
studies of a family of cellular proteins, referred to as Vav proteins, that play
a critical role in linking cell surface receptors to the actin cytoskeleton
through small GTP binding proteins in the RhoGTPase family. Mice lacking Vav1,
Vav2, or Vav3 are being employed to identify the cellular events that are
regulated by Vav in vivo and in vitro, to define which domains of Vav are
required for these events, and to determine which Vav effectors control these
events.
|
