Research & Discovery

After her own cancer diagnosis, this UVA professor is finding treatments

At the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Kristin Anderson’s passion for cancer research stems from her own experiences with the disease and witnessing firsthand the power of scientific discovery to save lives.

While in the fourth year of pursuing her doctorate in immunology at the University of Minnesota, Anderson was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Just 28 years old, the diagnosis came as a complete shock to her, her family, her doctors and her friends.

“I remember waking up from surgery and the doctor saying, ‘The drug combination we gave you before surgery worked so well that we couldn't find any tumor left,’ and I’ve been disease-free, which has been really just such a monumental feeling,” she said. “I want other cancer patients to have that feeling, too.”

When she’s not in the lab or mentoring students, Anderson lectures on immunology and cancer research in several UVA classes. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

Now an assistant professor in UVA’s Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology, she leads a team of researchers focused on designing new treatments for patients whose tumors aren’t responding to the current therapies, or that were responding until the tumors changed. In terms of what that looks like every day, Anderson said, “No two days are the same.”

“That’s one of the reasons that I love this job so much,” she said. “It also allows me, along with the folks in the lab, to constantly be learning, and that’s one of the things that brings me so much joy.”

Anderson lectures in several different courses, including cancer research and advanced immunology courses. She also works with several undergraduate and graduate students who contribute to the lab’s research.

Her lab includes four doctoral students: Rossymar Rivera Colón, Yaning Li, Rylee Poole and Julia Blaszczyk. There are also several fourth-year undergraduate researchers, including Daniel Dapaah, Caroline Grant and Lizzie Mangilit, with a new crop of third- and fourth-year students being trained to start researching soon.

Discovery and Innovation: Daily research. Life-changing results.

The team also includes postdoctoral researchers, medical students and staff scientists who are pursuing their own projects within the lab: Asmaa Mohamed, Jaime Kiff, Kara Cummings, Gabriel Alencar and Kuntal Biswas.

“Often in the lab, the greatest light bulb moments happen when we run into a roadblock and we have to figure out how to overcome it,” she said. “We problem-solve. We troubleshoot. We brainstorm and have discussions about what’s going on in the field around us, so that we can figure out the most effective ways to leverage cutting-edge technologies and overcome the obstacle.”

She says a benefit of working with colleagues who see patients is that the team meets and hears from cancer patients who are benefiting from the brand-new treatments generated at the University and elsewhere.

“Being able to bring the voice of patients, survivors, advocates into the basic science space has been really unique and helpful for us, because it allows the students to meet people who would actually benefit from their research,” Anderson said. “We are even more motivated on the hard days in the lab because we’ve met people who we’re working to help.”

Another benefit is that students learn to translate their research to people without an extensive science background.

“We want to make sure that everybody can understand the work we’re doing, even though at a science level, it can be very full of jargon and very complicated,” she said. “The goal is to help people, and we think everybody should have access to that fundamental understanding.”