As a member of the collaborative team that pioneered the use of cDNA microarrays to study global gene expression in solid tumors, Dr. Jeffrey's lab continues to study breast cancer genomics using DNA microarrays. Her laboratory has refined RNA amplification techniques so that microarray technology may be used for analysis of very small quantities of tumor tissue such as from needle biopsies, and has developed expertise in RNA isolation from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples.

More recently, her research focuses on the metastatic process in cancer. Dr. Jeffrey's lab has developed a robot, the MagSweeper, that isolates and purifies live rare cells from blood with higher capture rates and purity than has been previously possible with commercial technology. Using the MagSweeper, her lab characterizes circulating tumor cell (CTC) populations from the blood of cancer patients. Studies of CTCs at the single cell level are ongoing to evaluate the role of individual CTC phenotypes in the metastatic process and to compare them with cancer stem cells. Her lab also collaborates with Dr. Richard Bruce on other CTC investigations using novel technology developed at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

Dr. Jeffrey works with Dr. Robert Mah at NASA Ames Research Center to study in-vivo physiologic changes in breast tumors using a multisensor NASA Smart Probe that she co-developed with Dr. Mah, eventually correlating physiologic tumor parameters to gene expression profiles and tumor metabolic pathways.

• Microarray analysis of Korean breast cancers, Stanford University More 

• Wang Y, Ikeda DM, Narasimhan B, Longacre TA, Bleicher RJ, Pal S, Jackman RJ, Jeffrey SS "Estrogen Receptor Negative Invasive Breast Cancer: Imaging Features of Tumors with and without Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Type 2 Overexpression." Radiology 2008; More
• Han W, Jung EM, Cho J, Lee JW, Hwang KT, Yang SJ, Kang JJ, Bae JY, Jeon YK, Park IA, Nicolau M, Jeffrey SS, Noh DY "DNA copy number alterations and expression of relevant genes in triple-negative breast cancer." Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2008; More
• Korsching E, Jeffrey S, Meinerz W, Decker T, Boecker W, Buerger H "Basal carcinomas of the breast revisited - an old entity with new interpretations." J Clin Pathol 2008; More
• Kohrt HE, Olshen RA, Bermas HR, Goodson WH, Wood DJ, Henry S, Rouse RV, Bailey L, Philben VJ, Dirbas FM, Dunn JJ, Johnson DL, Wapnir IL, Carlson RW, Stockdale FE, Hansen NM, Jeffrey SS "New models and online calculator for predicting non-sentinel lymph node status in sentinel lymph node positive breast cancer patients." BMC Cancer 2008; 8: 1: 66 More
• Jeffrey SS, "Cancer biomarker profiling with microRNAs." Nat Biotechnol 2008; 26: 4: 400-1 More