University of Utah professor receives outstanding investigator award
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Alana L. Welm, PhD, will receive the AACR Outstanding Investigator Award for Breast Cancer Research during this year’s San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
The award — supported by Breast Cancer Research Foundation — recognizes an investigator whose work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on breast cancer etiology, prevention, detection, diagnosis or treatment.
Welm is senior director of basic science at Huntsman Cancer Institute, professor in the department of oncological sciences, and Ralph E. and Willia T. Main presidential endowed chair in cancer research at The University of Utah.
The award recognizes Welm for her translational research discoveries that have contributed to the development and improvement of breast cancer therapies.
Welm’s research has focused on the biology of metastatic breast cancer, with the goal of translating findings into novel therapeutic approaches.
She has developed innovative breast cancer models that accurately recapitulate breast cancer metastasis and treatment response.
Welm has a collection of 180 paired patient-derived xenografts (PDX) and PDX-derived organoids. She demonstrated that these models allow for investigation of how human breast tumors metastasize and can be used to predict recurrence risk among patients with triple-negative breast cancer.
Welm also has used immunocompetent mouse models to make important mechanistic discoveries that have furthered the understanding of the basic science of breast cancer. She discovered the tyrosine kinase RON as an important contributor to metastatic breast cancer. She also identified major RON isoforms often found in breast tumors, and showed that RON activity is sufficient to promote tumor growth and metastasis.
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