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Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Kristin Altwegg, M.S.

Ph.D. Student

Kristin works on developing novel small molecule inhibitors targeting proto-oncogenic PELP1 in both therapy resistant and triple negative breast cancers  Breast cancer (BCa) is the most common malignancy in women, the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths after lung cancer. The majority of BCa (70%) is estrogen receptor positive (ER+). However, most patients develop therapy-resistance (TR-BC), frequently progressing to metastases. In addition to ER+ BCa, approximately 15% of BCa diagnoses are categorized as triple negative BCa (TNBC) because they do not express the canonical molecular drivers: ER, progesterone receptor (PR), and HER2. TNBC is associated with a younger age at diagnosis (<40 years), advanced stage at diagnosis, predominance in African American or Hispanic ethnicity, and a more aggressive clinical course.  Overall, TNBC has a higher propensity to metastasize, worse prognosis, and contributes a disproportional share of the total mortality from BCa. TNBC is nonresponsive to many of the effective drugs targeting ER/PR or HER2.  Her doctoral work is geared toward development of novel effective therapies for women with TR-BC and TNBC with the overarching goal of improving patient survivorship.

Education

M.S., Food Science, Kansas State University, 2007

B.S., Food Science and Industry, Kansas State University, 2004

Awards

CPRIT Fellow

AACR Scholar-in-Training Award, 2020

AACR Associate Member Award, 2019