Christina Curtis is an American scientist who is a Professor of Medicine, Genetics and Biomedical Data Science and an Endowed Scholar at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

where her research investigates the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

s. She is director of

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and

Cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

Genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...

and is on the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the

American Association for Cancer Research The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is the world's oldest and largest professional association related to cancer research. Based in Philadelphia, the AACR focuses on all aspects of cancer research, including basic, clinical, and t ...

Early life and education

Curtis decided that she wanted to work on cancer treatments when she was a teenager. She was an undergraduate student at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and did a masters degree at

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. She moved to the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

for graduate studies, where she earned both a master's and a doctoral degree. She completed her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in molecular and computational biology in 2007 supervised by

Simon Tavaré Simon Tavaré (born 1952) is the founding Director of the Herbert and Florence Irving Institute of Cancer Dynamics at Columbia University. Prior to joining Columbia, he was Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, Professor of ...

Research and career

Curtis was a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, where she spent three years before returning to the faculty at the

. Curtis has leveraged computational modeling to better understand

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...

, providing insight into the evolution and metastasization of

s. She established the Cancer Computational and

Systems Biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

group. Curtis uses computer simulations to understand genetic

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mi ...

s in tumor samples. She believes that breast cancer tumors have genetic differences that respond differently to treatments. In 2019, she combined molecular analysis and historical clinical data to create the largest breast cancer cohort. In this cohort she found four groups of tumors that occur later in life, up to 20 years after the initial cancer diagnosis. She also found a subset of breast cancer tumors that do not recur after five years. To this end, Curtis believes that tumors with metastatic potential have this from the start – they are "born to be bad". In 2022, Curtis was appointed director of

and Cancer Genomics at the

Stanford Cancer Institute The Stanford Cancer Institute is an NCI-designated Cancer Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. It is one of eight comprehensive cancer centers in California. There are more than 400 faculty members of the Stanford Cancer Institute. Adul ...

Awards and honors

* 2011

Breast Cancer Research Foundation The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) is an independent, not-for-profit organization which has raised $569.4 million to support clinical and translational research on breast cancer at medical institutions in the United States and abroad. BC ...

The Ulta Beauty Award * 2012 V Scholar Grant * 2016 Kavli Foundation Frontiers of Science Fellow * 2018

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

Director's Pioneer Award * 2020 Susan G. Komen Scholar * 2022

Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Christina Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American physicians 21st-century American women physicians Heidelberg University alumni University of Southern California alumni University of Southern California faculty Stanford University School of Medicine faculty American cancer researchers American women medical researchers