The ASPIRE Path in Molecular Medicine

My current research with my basic science mentor, Dr. Tom Stricker, focuses on recurrently mutated, lineage defining transcription factors in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. Breast cancers are heterogeneous and typed based on their hormone receptors, such as estrogen receptor. My project is focused on specific transcription factors in ER positive breast cancer and how they are important to estrogen receptor function, cell proliferation and cell fate. Figuring out how these transcription factors function can help develop targeted therapeutics against tumors harboring mutations in these transcription factors.

I look forward to also getting to shadow and work with my clinical mentor, Dr. Vandana Abramson, who is not only a clinician treating breast cancer patients, but is involved in many breast cancer clinical trials here at Vanderbilt.