Kornelia polyak biography of michael

For dissecting the role of intratumor heterogeneity in breast cancer and metastatic disease to develop risk assessment and personalized cancer therapy models and for extensively characterizing the metastatic potential of polyclonal tumors compared to monoclonal tumors.

A cancer research pioneer, Dr.

Polyak is celebrated for her contributions to the understanding of intratumor heterogeneity in breast cancer and metastatic disease and for her efforts to develop predictive measures of risk and personalized cancer treatments.

Using samples collected from breast cancer patients, her research group has been able to conduct studies that have informed clinical care. Early in her independent career, Dr. Polyak uncovered an early gene loss function of the tumor suppressor HIN1 in over 94% of breast cancers and 95% of preinvasive lesions, caused by a hypermethylation of the gene promoter region.

In her groundbreaking publication, Dr. Polyak and colleagues characterized the gene expression p