Esther Black, PhD

Dr. Black received a Ph.D. at the University of Florida in Biomedical Sciences. Her thesis focused on transcriptional regulation in vaccinia virus. Dr. Black completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Joseph Nevins at Duke University. While at Duke, she initiated experiments to examine oncogenic signaling pathways using both biochemical and genomics tools.

Dr. Black's lab focuses on understanding how to better predict cancer patients response to small molecule and immuno-targeted therapies. We use genomics and bioinformatics tools to dissect the complexity of the oncogenic process. The data from genomics experiments and patient samples also lead to opportunities for drug discovery and design efforts as we uncover molecular effectors of deregulated signaling cascades common to many types of cancers. Finally, we have begun using health outcomes data to generate hypotheses that can be studied in the clinical arena and the wet lab.