Cindy K. Miranti, PhD
Biography
Cindy K. Miranti earned her B.Sc. in Microbiology from Southern Illinois University and Master’s in Microbiology from Colorado State University. She obtained her Ph.D in Biochemistry from Harvard Medical School. She completed her postdoctoral training at ARIAD Pharmaceuticals and Harvard Medical School. She joined the Van Andel Research Institute as an Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor. In 2016, she moved to University of Arizona as Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. She is Leader of the Prostate Cancer Research Group, and Chair of the Cancer Biology Graduate Interdisciplinary Program.
Cancer Focus
My laboratory investigates how cell adhesion through integrins, controls the interactions of tumor cells with the surrounding tissues, and how they influence prostate cancer development, drug resistance, and bone metastasis. Our research is focused in three primary areas: 1) developing in vitro and in vivo models that recapitulate human disease based on clinical pathology, 2) identifying pathways and molecules that could serve as clinical markers and/or therapeutic targets, and 3) defining the genetic events involved in normal prostate and bone development to determine how they are disrupted by cancer.