Breast cancer; endocrine control mechanisms, precision medicine, patient derived models; estrogen, progesterone,and androgen receptor signaling, Mammary Gland Development, Endocrine Disruptors

Cathrin Brisken obtained MD and PhD in Biophysics from the University of Göttingen, Germany, did postdoctoral work at the Whitehead Institute, MIT, Cambridge, USA, and held appointments at the Whitehead Institute, the Cancer Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. She is Associate Professor in Life Sciences at EPFL and Professor at the Institute of Cancer Research London. She was Dean of the EPFL Doctoral School and cofounded the International Cancer Prevention Institute. She has served on many international committees and advisory boards, including AACR Women in Cancer Research Council, International Breast Cancer Study Group Biological Protocol Working Group, Pezcoller Symposia Scientific Committee. Combining mouse genetics with innovative tissue recombination techniques, her laboratory made major contribution to our understanding of reproductive hormone action in vivo. Specific sex hormones, such as estrogens and progesterone impinge directly on a subset of luminal mammary epithelial cells that express the respective hormone receptors and act as sensor cells translating and amplifying systemic signals into local stimuli. Her lab overcame a major hurdle in ER breast cancer research by developing
clinically relevant xenograft models. These have opened entirely new perspectives on hormone dependent cancer and provided new insights into tumor dormancy.