Anastasia Kariagina

Anastasia Kariagina, a New investigator, will be a PI of the proposal to investigate hormonal regulation of mammary cancer stem cells in the model of hormone-dependent mammary cancer in the rat. Dr. Kariagina have an extensive training in endocrinology (10 years), developmental biology (more than 8 years), cancer biology (recent 4 years), and animal handling (both mice and rats). Under the mentorship of Dr. Sandra Haslam at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) she has mastered immunohistochemical detection of numerous proteins in normal and cancerous tissues, multiple surgival procedures in rodents, and work with cell lines and primary cultures. Dr. Kariagina’s previous training in molecular biology methods (RT-PCR, Western blot analysis) and animal handling at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA) is well documented by the published work (references 5-11).
Recently, using the adult rat mammary gland, primary cultures of rat mammary organoids, and breast cancer T47D cell lines, we have analyzed the molecular mechanisms underlying hormone action in the normal adult mammary gland (Kariagina A, Xie J., Leipprandt JR., Haslam SZ. Convergence of Progesterone and Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) signaling in vivo in the adult rat mammary gland and in mammary cancer. Submitted.) Using the rat mammary cancer model we have analyzed the effect of hormones on tumor development in ovariectomized rats replaced with estradiol or estradiol plus progesterone (Kariagina A, Haslam SZ. Progesterone alters tumor cell composition, increases tumor cell proliferation and survival, and promotes invasive behavior in carcinogen-induced mammary cancer in the rat , Manuscript in preparation).
Dr. Kariagina’s extensive expertise in experimental approaches (cell cultures, immunostainings, flow cytometry, molecular biology methods) , analysis of mammary cancer in the rat, and animal handling make her exceptionally well suited for the proposed study as a principal investigator.