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Dr. Irene
Andrulis
SENIOR
INVESTIGATOR
A molecular biologist, senior
investigator and co-head of the Fred. A. Litwin Centre for Cancer
Genetics at the Lunenfeld Institute, Dr. Andrulis’ pioneering work in
breast cancer is world-renowned. Her research on familial breast cancer
has the honour of being one of only six international registries chosen
for funding by the US National Institutes of Health. Dr. Andrulis also
holds the Anne Tanenbaum Chair in Molecular Biology at Mount Sinai
Hospital.
Dr. Andrulis and her colleagues established
that a genetic test could identify women with node negative breast
cancer (cancer that has not metastasized to the lymph nodes) who are at
increased risk of recurrence of the disease. The study was the first
prospective study on the importance of HER2 in node negative breast
cancer recurrence.
A major goal of Dr. Andrulis’ work is
the identification and characterization of molecular genetic
alterations in cancer and the application of this knowledge to clinical
practice. She has developed multi-disciplinary collaborations to
identify patients at greater risk of dying from breast cancer, to
conduct clinical trials to find the most appropriate therapies and, as
importantly, to spare 75 to 80% of women at risk of breast cancer from
over treatment and its side effects. Dr. Andrulis and her team are also
looking for predictors that will identify risk, prognosis, treatment
outcomes and recurrence of sarcoma.
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