Christina Curtis

Christina Curtis
Curtis in 2021
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles Heidelberg University University of Southern California
Scientific career
Fields	Cancer genomics Tumor evolution Computational biology Early detection [1]
Institutions	Stanford University University of Cambridge
Thesis	Analysis of high-density oligonucleotide gene expression data for dissecting aging pathways  (2007)
Doctoral advisor	Simon Tavaré [2]
Website	profiles.stanford.edu/christina-curtis

Christina Curtis is an American scientist who is a Professor of Medicine, Genetics and Biomedical Data Science and an Endowed Scholar at Stanford University ^{[1] [3]} where her research investigates the evolution of tumors. ^[4] She is director of Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Genomics at Stanford University School of Medicine and is on the board of directors of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Early life and education

Curtis decided that she wanted to work on cancer treatments when she was a teenager. ^[5] She was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles ^[6] and did a masters degree at Heidelberg University. ^[7] She moved to the University of Southern California for graduate studies, where she earned both a master's and a doctoral degree. ^[8] She completed her PhD in molecular and computational biology in 2007 supervised by Simon Tavaré. ^{[2] [9]}

Research and career

Curtis was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, where she spent three years before returning to the faculty at the University of Southern California.^{[ citation needed ]}

Curtis has leveraged computational modeling to better understand breast cancer, providing insight into the evolution and metastasization of tumors. ^[10] She established the Cancer Computational and Systems Biology group.

Curtis uses computer simulations to understand genetic mutations in tumor samples. ^[11] She believes that breast cancer tumors have genetic differences that respond differently to treatments. ^[11] 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. ^[12] To this end, Curtis believes that tumors with metastatic potential have this from the start – they are "born to be bad". ^[5]

In 2022, Curtis was appointed director of Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Genomics at the Stanford Cancer Institute.^{[ citation needed ]}

Awards and honors

• 2011 Breast Cancer Research Foundation The Ulta Beauty Award ^[9]
• 2012 V Scholar Grant ^[13]
• 2016 Kavli Foundation Frontiers of Science Fellow ^[14]
• 2018 National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award ^[11]
• 2020 Susan G. Komen Scholar ^[15]
• 2022 American Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science ^[16]

Selected publications

• Curtis C; Sohrab P. Shah; Suet-Feung Chin; et al. (18 April 2012). "The genomic and transcriptomic architecture of 2,000 breast tumours reveals novel subgroups" (PDF). Nature . 486 (7403): 346–52. doi:10.1038/NATURE10983. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   3440846 . PMID   22522925. Wikidata   Q29614700.
• Jae-Ho Cheong (11 September 2014). "Comprehensive molecular characterization of gastric adenocarcinoma". Nature . 513 (7517): 202–9. doi:10.1038/NATURE13480. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   4170219 . PMID   25079317. Wikidata   Q28244985.
• Andrea Sottoriva; Haeyoun Kang; Zhicheng Ma; et al. (9 February 2015). "A Big Bang model of human colorectal tumor growth". Nature Genetics . 47 (3): 209–216. doi:10.1038/NG.3214. ISSN   1061-4036. PMC   4575589 . PMID   25665006. Wikidata   Q36074227.

References

1. Christina Curtis publications indexed by Google Scholar
2. Christina Curtis at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
3. Christina Curtis publications from Europe PubMed Central
4. "Q&A: Christina Curtis on Computational and Systems Biology". Cancer Discovery . 10 (2): 169. 22 January 2020. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-ND2020-001. ISSN   2159-8274. PMID   31969324. Wikidata   Q92858397.
5. "Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc: Researching Ways to Intercept Cancer at Its Earliest Stages". aacr.org. American Association for Cancer Research. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
6. Christina Curtis on LinkedIn
7. "Christina Curtis". med.stanford.edu. Stanford Medicine. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
8. Curtis, Christina (2007). Analysis of high-density oligonucleotide gene expression data for dissecting aging pathways (PhD thesis). University of Southern California. ISBN   978-0-549-83622-3. ProQuest   304825898.
9. "Christina Curtis". bcrf.org. Breast Cancer Research Foundation. 2014-06-24. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
10. "Meet the Team". med.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
11. "Pioneer Award Program - Program Highlights". commonfund.nih.gov. 2013-06-26. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
12. Rueda, Oscar M.; Sammut, Stephen-John; Seoane, Jose A.; Chin, Suet-Feung; Caswell-Jin, Jennifer L.; Callari, Maurizio; Batra, Rajbir; Pereira, Bernard; Bruna, Alejandra; Ali, H. Raza; Provenzano, Elena; Liu, Bin; Parisien, Michelle; Gillett, Cheryl; McKinney, Steven (March 2019). "Dynamics of breast-cancer relapse reveal late-recurring ER-positive genomic subgroups". Nature. 567 (7748): 399–404. Bibcode:2019Natur.567..399R. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1007-8. ISSN   1476-4687. PMC   6647838 . PMID   30867590.
13. Fletcher, Alexandra (2012-10-30). "Christina Curtis wins young investigator award". stemcell.keck.usc.edu. University of Southern California. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
14. "Christina Curtis". nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
15. "Meet Our Scholars". komen.org. Susan G. Komen. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
16. Jarrett, Keke (2022-04-09). "AACR honors elite group with scientific achievement awards and lectureships". aacrmeetingnews.org. AACR Annual Meeting News. Retrieved 2023-05-09.