The LCRC’s Biospecimen Core Lab began the new year by welcoming a new Assistant Director, Dr. Melyssa Bratton. Dr. Bratton previously served as Xavier University’s Cell, Molecular Biology, and Bioinformatics Core Manager.    

The LCRC Biospecimen Core Laboratory is a repository of thousands of tumor samples. With patient consent, tumor samples, blood, and other relevant materials are collected during surgery or clinic visits. Over 6,000 cancer patients authorized their doctors to contribute their tissue to further LCRC cancer research. The lab stores thousands of samples including prostate, kidney, breast and colorectal.  LCRC scientists use the samples in their ongoing cancer research.  

Dr. Bratton earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She then moved to Tulane University in New Orleans where she studied the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals’ effects on estrogen receptor (ER) biology and the roles these chemicals might play in ER-dependent breast cancer. She was also involved in projects concerning drug resistance in breast cancer, in dissecting molecular mechanisms of drug resistance and triple negative breast cancer.   In her first month on the job, she has been working with an IT team to migrate the Core’s data to a state-of-the-art software program that will make patient sample entry and querying much more efficient.     Dr. Bratton has published over thirty peer-reviewed journal articles and intends to serve as the Core’s assistant director  and as a scientific liaison for the LCRC. She hopes to leverage her scientific background to facilitate dialog between researchers interested in using the Biospecimen Core to both expand the Core’s user base as well as increase the impact the core might have on the greater research community.

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