Anne E Cress, PhD
Dr. Cress earned a doctoral degree in biochemistry from the University of Arizona. She studied the biochemistry of DNA replication at Stanford University in Dr. Robert Lehman’s laboratory; peptide chemistry at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and developmental biology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She joined the UA faculty, rising through the ranks to become a Professor with tenure in Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Radiation Oncology. She was one of eleven founding faculty members of the UA Cancer Center and the Cancer Biology Graduate Program. She currently serves as Vice Dean for Strategy and Innovation at the UA College of Medicine.
Cancer Focus
My group studies the molecular mechanisms of human epithelial cancer invasion and metastasis. Specifically, we study the regulation of cell surface molecules (called integrins) and their role in cancer cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix. My research team discovered that laminin adhesion structures are dramatically altered in human cancer resulting in invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance. We have developed three approaches to interrupt cell adhesion to laminin: (1) using cyclized peptides, (2) deploying small molecules, and/or (3) using function-blocking antibodies. Currently we are using gene editing and other genetic tools to identify actionable pathways within heterotypic cancer clusters to block invasion and metastasis.