Biography
Professor Cathrin Brisken obtained her MD and a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Göttingen, Germany. She did postdoctoral work at the Whitehead Institute, MIT, Cambridge, USA, where she began to genetically dissect the in vivo role of reproductive hormones in the mammary gland.
She held appointments at the Cancer Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in Lausanne before joining the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne, EPFL, where she has an active transdisciplinary laboratory. She served as Dean of the EPFL Doctoral School, in the AACR Women in Cancer Research Council and is member of the IBCSG Biological Protocol Working Group and the Pezcoller Symposia Scientific Committee. She cofounded the International Cancer Prevention Institute.
Professor Brisken's research focuses on the cellular and molecular underpinnings of estrogen, progesterone, and androgen receptor signalling in the breast epithelium and their respective roles in breast cancer development. The aim is to understand how endogenous and exogenous hormones affect breast carcinogenesis to better prevent and treat the disease.