Short Biography

Robert Clarke, Ph.D., D.Sc.

Robert Clarke, Ph.D., D.Sc., F.I.Biol., F.R.S.Chem., F.R.S.Med.¹ is Professor of Oncology and Professor of Physiology & Biophysics at Georgetown University (Washington, DC, U.S.A), and Co-Director of the Division of Molecular Endocrinology, Nutrition and Obesity, and Co-Director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center (Georgetown University). Dr. Clarke earned a D.Sc. in 1999, a Ph.D. in 1986, and a M.Sc. in 1982 (each in Biochemistry) from the Queen’s University of Belfast (U.K.) and a B.Sc. (Biological Sciences) in 1980 from the University of Ulster (U.K.). He completed his postdoctoral training with Dr. Mac E.Lippman at the Medical Breast Section of the National Cancer Institute (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, U.S.A.) as a Breast Cancer Study Group Fellow (1988). Dr. Clarke joined the Faculty at Georgetown University in 1989, where served as Secretary/Treasurer of the Georgetown University Senate from 2004 - 2007. An elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (U.K.), the Royal Society of Medicine (U.K.), and the Royal Institute of Biology (U.K.), Dr. Clarke also is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research, Endocrine Society (U.S.A.), Society for Endocrinology (U.K.), New York Academy of Sciences, and the American Chemical Society.

An internationally recognized leader in breast cancer research, Dr. Clarke studies how hormones (endogenous and exogenous) and related factors affect breast cancer. Focusing initially on the interactions of hormones and anticancer drugs, Dr. Clarke’s work expanded into studies of the underlying the cellular and molecular mechanisms that explain how breast cancers become resistant to hormone and cytotoxic therapies. He and his colleagues have developed a series of hormone resistant breast cancer models that are now widely used in the field. Dr. Clarke is currently developing and applying genomic and novel bioinformatic methods in translational breast cancer studies. He and his collaborators have recently discovered a new molecular signaling network that contributes to the hormonal regulation of breast cancer cell proliferation and cell death. A key gene in this network, interferon regulatory factor-1 (IRF-1), was first implicated in affecting hormone responsiveness and breast cancer cell survival in Dr. Clarke’s lab. He and his colleagues have recently shown that IRF-1 is a new breast cancer suppressor gene. Other key observations include evidence of the functional roles of NFκB and XBP-1 in affecting both the dependence of breast cancer cells upon estrogens for growth and their responsiveness to antiestrogens. Dr. Clarke has authored and co-authored over 150 publications and has several patents, mostly in the field of breast cancer research.

Dr. Clarke leads two multinational molecular medicine studies in breast cancer, one funded by the N.I.H. (National Cancer Institute) and one by the Department of Defense (Breast Cancer Research Program), which include investigators from Georgetown University and other institution in the U.S. and E.U. He also leads the Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) team at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Regularly invited to speak about his research at international and national meetings, Dr. Clarke also serves on the editorial board of 12 peer review journals include Cancer Research, Molecular Cancer Research, British Journal of Cancer, and Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Dr. Clarke regularly serves on state, national, and international grant peerreview study sections; he is Chair of the N.I.H. grant review study section (“Basic Science”) for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine from 2002 - 2008.