Donita Brady facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Donita C. Brady
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| Alma mater | Radford University - Chemistry, B.S. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, PhD |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cancer Biology |
| Institutions | Duke University School of Medicine, Postdoctoral Researcher with Christopher Counter, 2008-2013 Duke University School of Medicine, Research Associate Senior with Christopher Counter, 2013-2015 |
| Thesis | The transforming Rho family GTPase, Wrch-1, regulates epithelial cell morphogenesis through modulating cell junctions and actin cytoskeletal dynamics (May 2008) |
| Doctoral advisor | Adrienne D. Cox |
Donita C. Brady is a scientist who studies cancer. She is a professor of Cancer Biology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research looks at how cells talk to each other. She also studies how cells use important nutrients, especially metals like copper. This work helps us understand how cancer grows.
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Donita Brady's Early Life and School
Donita Brady grew up near Virginia Beach. She became interested in chemistry because of her high school teacher. She went to Radford University to study chemistry. She graduated with high honors.
Donita Brady's Career Journey
Dr. Brady earned her PhD in pharmacology in 2008. This was at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. During her studies, she learned how cancer cells change their shape. After her PhD, she worked as a researcher at Duke University School of Medicine. In 2015, she became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2016, she was named a Pew Scholar. This is a special award for young scientists. In 2019, she received a grant from the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research Fund. This helped her continue her work on pancreatic cancer.
What Donita Brady Researches
Dr. Brady's research focuses on how cells communicate. She studies special proteins called kinases. She also looks at how cells manage nutrients, like metals. Copper is a very important metal in her research.
She found that kinases need copper to work correctly. Kinases are like messengers inside cells. Dr. Brady also showed that slowing down a protein called CTR1 can help. CTR1 brings copper into cells. By stopping CTR1, she could slow down tumor growth in mice. This research helps us understand new ways to fight cancer.
Awards and Honors for Donita Brady
Dr. Brady has received many awards for her important research. Some of these include:
- James Lewis Howe Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry - American Chemical Society (2003)
- AACR Annual Meeting Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award (2013 and 2014)
- Pew Scholar in the biomedical sciences (2016)
- JBC/Herb Tabor Young Investigator Award (2016)
- William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation Scholar (2017)
- Linda Pechenik Montague Investigator Award (2018)
Important Research Papers
Dr. Brady has published many important research papers. These papers share her discoveries with other scientists. Her work often focuses on how copper affects cancer cells.
- Brady, Donita C., et al. "Copper is required for oncogenic BRAF signalling and tumorigenesis." Nature 509.7501 (2014): 492–496.
- Brady, Donita C., et al. "Copper chelation inhibits BRAFV600E-driven melanomagenesis and counters resistance to BRAFV600E and MEK1/2 inhibitors." Cancer research 77.22 (2017): 6240–6252.
- Tsang, Tiffany, et al. "Copper is an essential regulator of the autophagic kinases ULK1/2 to drive lung adenocarcinoma." Nature Cell Biology 22.4 (2020): 412–424.
Donita Brady's Personal Life
When she was at Radford University, Donita Brady played softball. She played for a Division I team.
