Breast Cancer Interest Group Meeting
Guest Speaker:
Alana L. Welm, PhD
Senior Director of Basic Science, Ralph E. and Willia T. Main Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, Huntsman Cancer Institute
Professor, Oncological Sciences, University of Utah
Talk Title: “Modeling Metastatic Breast Cancer to Advance Therapeutic Strategies”
Location: In-person, New Research Building E501 Conference Room with Zoom option
About the Speaker:
Dr. Welm received her undergraduate degree in Microbiology from the University of Montana. She completed a PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine under the supervision of Gretchen Darlington. She then went on to conduct postdoctoral training in J. Michael Bishop’s laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, where her work focused on developing new models of breast cancer metastasis. Dr. Welm started her laboratory at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute in 2007, and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2013 and to full Professor in 2019. She now holds the Ralph E. and Willia T. Main Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research and is Senior Director of Basic Science at Huntsman Cancer Institute. Work in her laboratory focuses on metastatic breast cancer, investigating mechanisms by which cancer cells transition from a period of latent disease to metastatic outgrowth, and how the immune system controls that process. She also develops and utilizes patient-derived tumor models to understand breast tumor evolution during metastasis, to identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities in metastatic tumors, and to personalize therapy for breast cancer patients using functional drug testing in their tumor models