PHILADELPHIA (December 22, 2022)—The Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and Fox Chase Cancer Center are pleased to announce the hiring of Lucia Borriello, PhD, as an assistant professor in the Department of Cancer and Cellular Biology at Temple. In addition to her primary position at Temple, Borriello will hold a dual appointment in the Cancer Signaling and Microenvironment research program at Fox Chase.
Borriello’s research focuses on understanding how breast and lung tumor cells that have escaped the primary tumor survive in distant organs in a latent state—also known as a dormant state—for years, and how they exit dormancy to induce metastatic relapse. She is an expert in cancer biology, metastasis, and imaging, which allows her to follow the fate and growth of individual tumor cells in living animals. Her research interests also include the role of the tumor microenvironment and therapeutic resistance in promoting metastasis.
Borriello earned her Bachelor of Science degree in biotechnology from the University of Teramo in Italy, then received a Master of Science degree in the biotechnology of reproduction from the University of Teramo and Queen’s University of Belfast, Ireland. She then went on to earn a doctorate from the University of Paris for studies of breast cancer biology and pharmacology.
After earning her doctorate, Borriello was a postdoctoral researcher studying the role of the tumor microenvironment in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. She then completed another postdoctoral fellowship in which she developed her expertise in breast cancer dormancy in the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York.
In addition to being awarded several research grants, Borriello serves in a number of leadership and service roles, including as ambassador to the American Society for Cell Biology. She was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Metastasis Research Society and Chair of its Young Investigators Group.
Additionally, Borriello serves on the editorial boards of Frontiers in Molecular Diagnostics and Therapeutics and Frontiers in Cell Adhesion and Migration, among others, as well as reviewer for a number of journals, including Cancer, Gene, and Journal of Oncology. She is also a member of several professional societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for Cancer Research, and the European Association for Cancer Research.
Borriello began her research at Temple and Fox Chase on October 1.