Suzanne Conzen, M.D., recieved a balaurate degree, magna cum laude from Brown University, Her first exposure to bench science was in Dr. Charles Janeway, Jr's labortory at Yale Medical School . Following her second year of medical school she obtained an M.Sc. At the University of Tropical Medicine and Science before graduating from Yale in 1987. Following an internal medince residency at Cornell Medical Center she did her hematology and oncology fellowships at Dartmounth. Dr. Conzen wa awarded a Howard Hughes Physician Fellowship to study mechanism OS Sv40 mediated transformation in the Dartmouth Biochemistry under the mentorship of Dr. Chuck Cole. Dr. Conzen then moved to the University of Chicago's Ben May Institute to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the labortory of Dr. Nauseam Hay where she studied tumor-associated mutant c-Myc-medication apoptosis andd cell cycle progression. In 1998 Dr. Conzen was appointed Assistant Prefacer at the University of Chicago and established a research program studying mammary epithelial cell survival under the mentioship of Dr. Geoffrey Greene, director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Inversed of Chicago Cancer Cent. Dr. Conzen's work has shown that the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) has potent signaling effects in mammary epithelium and can transcriptionaly activate cell cycle-related kinases hypothesized to be important for cell survival and division. Because Dr. Conzen has little previous experience in steriod receptor biology or the analysis of intracelluar kinnase-mediated signaling pathways, the proposed research career development plan requests support to provide a comprehensive training period to work closely with Drs. Greene andd Marsha Rosner to determine the mechanism of GR- medicated survival signaling in breast cancer. Dr. Conzen proposes to characterize the gluocorticoid repersiveness and GR alpha and beta expression in breast tumor cell lines and to conurrently investigate the signaling pathways of GR-induced or repressed cellular kinase including SGK( serum and glucocorticoid induible kinases). Under the mentorship of Dr. Greene and with the assistance of Dr. Shutsung Liao and Dr. Mark Ratain, Dr. Conzen also proposes to eastablish anddan in vivo system to evaluate the GR in human breast cancer using an ER/PR negative human mammary carsinoma xenograft nude mouse model. The proposed career development plan will formulize Dr. Conzen's mentoring program with a defined research plan and ensure the protected research time needed for training in the methods and anyalytical skills required to develop an independent research program in survival signaling in malignant and normal breast epithelium.
