Marc E. Lippman, MD
Kathleen & Stanley Glaser Professor
Chairman, Department of Medicine
Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami
Miami, FL

Dr. Lippman's overall scientific goal is to better understand, at the molecular genetic level, how estrogen stimulates breast cancer proliferation and to translate this knowledge into the clinic with the hope that it will increase the ability to identify patients who will benefit from hormone therapy.

Using a novel bioinformatics approach to identify estrogen-regulated genes in their preclinical and clinical gene expression datasets, the researchers have identified "gene signatures" that can predict prognosis as well as hormone response in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. One gene that they have identified called "GREB1" has been shown to be critical and specific to estrogen induced breast cancer growth. Over the past year they have successfully cloned GREB1 into mammalian expression vectors suitable for in vitro and in vivo functional studies. In addition, they have generated GREB1 specific antibodies that they will use to investigate GREB1 as a clinical biomarker.