Christina Curtis

Christina Curtis
Curtis in 2021
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles Heidelberg University University of Southern California
Scientific career
Fields	Cancer genomics Tumor evolution Computational biology Early detection[1]
Institutions	Stanford University University of Cambridge
Thesis	Analysis of high-density oligonucleotide gene expression data for dissecting aging pathways (2007)
Doctoral advisor	Simon Tavaré[2]
Website	profiles.stanford.edu/christina-curtis

Christina Curtis is an American scientist who is a Professor of Medicine, Genetics and Biomedical Data Science and an Endowed Scholar at

Curtis was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, where she spent three years before returning to the faculty at the University of Southern California.^{[citation needed]}

Curtis has leveraged computational modeling to better understand

Curtis uses computer simulations to understand genetic mutations in tumor samples.^[11] She believes that breast cancer tumors have genetic differences that respond differently to treatments.^[11] In 2019, she combined molecular analysis and historical clinical data to create the largest breast cancer cohort. In this cohort she found four groups of tumors that occur later in life, up to 20 years after the initial cancer diagnosis. She also found a subset of breast cancer tumors that do not recur after five years.^[12] To this end, Curtis believes that tumors with metastatic potential have this from the start – they are "born to be bad".^[5]

In 2022, Curtis was appointed director of

• 2011 Breast Cancer Research Foundation The Ulta Beauty Award^[9]
• 2012 V Scholar Grant^[13]
• 2016 Kavli Foundation Frontiers of Science Fellow^[14]
• 2018 National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award^[11]
• 2020 Susan G. Komen Scholar^[15]
• 2022 American Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science^[16]

Selected publications