Jean Johanna Latimer, Ph.D.
Dr. Jean Latimer is currently an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health. She is also a faculty member in the Cellular and Molecular Pathology Graduate Training Program and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Dr. Latimer received her PhD in Molecular Biology and Cell Biology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She was also a post-doctoral fellow/post-graduate researcher in the Laboratory of Radiobiology and Environmental Health at the University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Latimer’s research focuses on DNA repair deficiencies as a causative factor in breast carcinogenesis. Dr. Latimer's laboratory has developed a multiple-lineage tissue engineering system for primary culture of Human Mammary Epithelial Cells (HMEC). There are three unique features of this system: it has a success rate of 100% at establishing primary cultures from reduction mammoplasties; it produces unusually long-lived cultures (3 months or longer), and these cultures progressively undergo ductal, if not lobular, differentiation in vitro, effectively reiterating in vivo organogenesis.
Dr. Latimer has also used this methodology to culture breast tumors as well as non-diseased tissue with a success rate of 85%. In these studies her laboratory measured DNA repair capacity as an etiological factor in breast tumorigenesis.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Dr. Jean Latimer, Ph. D
Phone: 412-623-2228
Email: latimerjj@upmc.edu
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