During this interactive session, Dr. Nikki Delk, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, will explain the role inflammation plays in breast and prostate cancer and how her research on treatment resistance and alternative therapies makes a #UTDResearchImpact.

My lab studies the role of inflammation in breast and prostate cancer treatment resistance. My lab has discovered that chronic exposure to inflammation alters the cancer cell genes leading to treatment resistance. Our goal is to develop genetic signatures that can predict which breast or prostate cancer patients would be resistant to conventional therapy and identify alternative therapies for those patients.

Bio: Dr. Delk is an Associate Prof in Biological Sciences, a Cecil H. Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science Fellow, and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute. Her lab studies inflammation-induced breast and prostate cancer progression and treatment resistance. After receiving her bachelor’s in math from Georgetown University, she was commissioned as an Air Force Officer where she served for 4 years at the Air Force Research Laboratory before obtaining a doctorate in molecular biology from Rice University. She obtained a doctorate to pursue her childhood dream to be a cancer researcher. She was a postdoctoral fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center and a faculty fellow at Rice University before joining the faculty at UT Dallas in 2014.