Irene Andrulis

Biography

rene Andrulis PhD Professor Contact information Mount Sinai Hospital 600 University Ave. Rm 984 Toronto Ontario M5G 1X5 Phone: 416-586-8256 Fax: 416-586-8663 Email: andrulis@lunenfeld.ca Research location: Mount Sinai Hospital/Research Institute Primary Research Area: Cancer Secondary Research Area: Genetics, Genomics & Proteomics Research Statement: My laboratory conducts multi-disciplinary studies to identify genetic alterations that play a role in breast cancer and sarcoma and to determine their clinical importance. Our goals are to explore the biology of these genetic alterations, to aid in diagnosis and treatment, and to discover novel targets for therapeutics.           rene Andrulis PhD Professor Contact information Mount Sinai Hospital 600 University Ave. Rm 984 Toronto Ontario M5G 1X5 Phone: 416-586-8256 Fax: 416-586-8663 Email: andrulis@lunenfeld.ca Research location: Mount Sinai Hospital/Research Institute Primary Research Area: Cancer Secondary Research Area: Genetics, Genomics & Proteomics Research Statement: My laboratory conducts multi-disciplinary studies to identify genetic alterations that play a role in breast cancer and sarcoma and to determine their clinical importance. Our goals are to explore the biology of these genetic alterations, to aid in diagnosis and treatment, and to discover novel targets for therapeutics.          

Research Interest

Axillary lymph node status in breast cancer is the most important factor in predicting a patient’s risk of recurrence of disease. Patients whose disease has not spread to the lymph nodes (axillary node-negative, ANN) generally have a good prognosis; however, 20-30% of ANN patients will experience disease recurrence. This limit in prognostic ability of lymph node status has led me and my colleagues to a search for markers with prognostic power to aid in determining which ANN patients may benefit from chemotherapy and hormonal therapy. Our studies have led to the identification of novel genes involved in breast cancer. My goal as a molecular geneticist with an interest in molecular medicine is to assist in the translation of our basic research results into clinical practice.  Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease that has been subdivided by gene expression profiling into different molecular subtypes (basal-like, HER2 enriched, luminal A and B, and normal breast-like). Even within the established subtypes, the clinical course of the disease can be diverse. For example, basal-like tumours have been shown to be associated with a poor prognosis; however, emerging evidence from our group and others suggests that this effect is time-dependent and that there exists a group of women with basal-like cancers who, in the long term, have a more favourable outcome.