| Lisa Coussens | |
| Workplaces: | Oregon Health & Science University University of California, San Francisco Genentech |
| Alma Mater: | University of California, Los Angeles San Francisco State University |
| Thesis Title: | Regulation of junB expression by transforming growth factor-beta, adenovirus12-E1A, and by the retinoblastoma susceptibility gene product |
| Thesis Url: | http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/732921603 |
| Thesis Year: | 1993 |
Lisa M. Coussens is an American cancer scientist who is Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology and Deputy Director for Basic and Translational Research in the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health & Science University. She served as 2022-2023 President of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Coussens was an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University. She worked at Genentech, Inc. (1981-1988) with Axel Ullrich PhD researching growth factor receptors and cloned the HER2 proto-oncogene. She moved to the University of California, Los Angeles for her doctoral research, where she studied JUNB expression.[1] She was a postdoctoral researcher working with Douglas Hanahan at the University of California, San Francisco where she used transgenic mouse models of multi-stage cancer progression and demonstrated that chronic inflammation is established in early cancers and subsequently drives tumor development. Her later research has identified critical immune-regulatory programs that represent cancer vulnerabilities that can be therapeutically targeted to slow cancer progression. [2]
Coussens' research considers immune therapies for cancer treatment.[3] To do this, she looks at how immune cells regulate aspects of tumor cell development and the role of leukocytes. She makes use of breast, HPV-associated squamous, pancreas and mesothelioma mouse cancer models, in combination with human cancer specimens, to identify immune-regulated pathways that may be susceptible to therapeutic targeting.[4]
Coussens showed that some immune cells are hijacked to promote tumor growth and metastasis. She uncovered the intra-cellular communication processes which cause tumor cells to trigger CD4 T cells to recruit macrophages to early tumors. Macrophages are white blood cells that are usually involved with clearing debris, but produce epidermal growth factors when they are close to tumor cells, which promotes the proliferation and invasion of tumor cells. Her research has emphasized the need to understand the tumor microenvironment in understanding cancer progression. She showed that dying cancer cells release factors that induce a CD8+ T cell-mediated immune response against cancer.[5]
In 2022, Coussens was elected President of the American Association for Cancer Research.[6] [7]