Metastasis is the process whereby cells from a primary tumor migrate to a distant tissue and colonize to form secondary tumors. The process of metastasis is a complex, stepwise process that remains to be fully characterized. Metastasis is of the utmost importance clinically as it accounts for >90% of breast cancer deaths. The primary focus of my laboratory will be to study mechanisms of cancer progression, metastasis, and metastatic tumor treatment resistance and use the greater understanding of these mechanisms to initiate translational studies with the long-term hope of having significant clinical impact.
