The Curtis Lab's long-term experimental evolution study in CRISPR/Cas9 edited human organoids demonstrates that tumor initiation is surprisingly deterministic.
Human cells evolving in the laboratory undergo a series of predictable, sequential genetic changes that lead to pre-cancer. Blocking these changes may allow intervention before cancer occurs.
Christina Curtis received the 2022 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Cancer Research from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
Professor Christina Curtis received the 2022 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Cancer Research from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). This honor is in recognition of her paradigm-shifting research on tumor evolution, including the “big bang” model, which explains how treatment-naïve cancers grow in the absence of therapeutic influence and her demonstration that some tumors are born to be bad and can metastasize early.
Curtis Lab received inaugural NCI Metastasis Network Grant supporting a new Center for Breast Cancer Metastasis
Understanding the spectrum of complex metastatic processes is important to the development of a comprehensive and cohesive understanding of cancer metastasis. The Metastasis Research Network (MetNet) supports several U54 Specialized Centers (RFA-CA-20-029). These collaborative, multidisciplinary projects focus on several themes of the metastatic process and utilize integrative systems-level approaches.11
The Stanford Breast Metastasis Center, led by Dr. Christina Curtis, aims to quantify the timing of metastatic dissemination in breast cancer, functionally delineate the contribution of cellular and microenvironmental crosstalk on metastatic proclivity, and characterize the mechanisms of responses by metastatic cells to therapies. To achieve these goals, the Center will use mechanistic computational models that capture dynamic and emergent tumor cell intrinsic and extrinsic properties from clinically annotated longitudinal tissue cohorts and experimental models that capture disease heterogeneity.
Christina Curtis named 2022 Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator Program, open to faculty from Stanford University, UC San Francisco, and UC Berkeley, funds innovative, visionary research with the goal of building engaged, collaborative scientific communities to help solve critical challenges in biomedicine. Christina Curtis was chosen, from among nearly 700 applicants through a competitive process judged by nationally recognized external reviewers and a blue-ribbon Selection Advisory Committee, to be a member of the 2022 cohort of CZ Biohub Investigators.
Translating Basic Cancer Discoveries to the Clinic
CANCER CELL. Mardis, E. R., Dawson, M. A., Curtis, C., Xu, R., Long, G. V., Scolyer, R. A., Bakhoum, S. F., Nam, D., Garnett, M., Huang, A.2020; 37 (6): 735–37 PMID: 32516583
Christina Curtis and other thought leaders share their perspectives on translating basic science discoveries to the clinic.
Q&A with Christina Curtis on Computational and Systems Biology
Cancer Discovery 2020; 10 (2), 169
Computational and systems biology is a fast-moving field of cancer research in which scientists use novel technologies and modeling approaches to quantify biological aspects of tumors, generating data that might point to methods of improving cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment. Curtis discussed her research with Cancer Discovery's Catherine Caruso.
Christina receives 2018 NIH Director's Pioneer Award
Dr. Curtis was awarded the 2018 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and which supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose highly innovative and potentially transformative approaches to major challenges in the biomedical or behavioral sciences towards the goal of enhancing human health. See Stanford's Press release.
