Associate Professor Pilar Blancafort

Dr. Pilar Blancafort research has focused on two areas; one is the manipulation of the epigenome in several cancer models, such as breast cancer. This includes the development of DNA binding proteins to reactivate dormant tumour suppressors , and the stable repression of oncogenic drivers.

More recently Dr. Blancafort has harnessed CRISPR/Cas9 models to reactivate the immune response in breast cancer. In collaboration with several investigators, she has implemented  targeted delivered systems for CRISPR in primary solid tumors. More recently Dr. Blancafort has studied the role of novel oncogenes in activating the PI3K-AKT-mTOR pathway in breast and ovarian cancers. In sum, her research outcomes are the development of new agents to target specific patways as specialised medicine tools in the field of womens cancers.

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