她的发现扩大了癌症遗传学知识

于1987年在MD安德森抵达作为初级教员后不久，Guillermina洛萨诺博士参加了几次研讨会主办该中心的生物化学系。

The biochemists giving the presentations were studying the role of transcription factors – proteins that regulate how genes express themselves. Lozano, a geneticist working to understand p53, a gene known to suppress tumor development, suddenly wondered if p53 could itself be a transcription factor.

“我回到我的办公室，拿出p53的序列，说：“哦，这里有可能吸引转录机制这一带负电荷的域名和这里的，可以与DNA结合本正域。也许这是一种转录因子。”然后我们计划将检验这一假设的实验。”

实验证明了这种假设正确，洛萨诺发表了她的发现在科学杂志上，确立了她作为世界上最重要的癌症研究人员之一的美誉。188bet体育网址2017年，她成为了第六MD安德森科学家当选为美国国家科学院，而是先选择了进行的研究，同时对在该机构的教师。188bet体育网址

The road to a career in research

墨西哥移民的女儿，洛萨诺出生并成长于东方芝加哥，印第安纳州，在那里她对科学的热爱被她的老师主教诺尔，一所私立天主教高中点燃。在她读高中，然而，她的家人搬到了德克萨斯州麦卡伦，更接近他们的墨西哥亲戚，洛萨诺被迫调整到较具有挑战性的公立学校。

After graduating, she enrolled at nearby Pan American University (now the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley).

“我在墨西哥的美国文化中长大，”她回忆说。“我是一个女人。我预计结婚，并有一个家庭，我预计不会去上大学。我父亲只让我去泛美这样，如果我未来的丈夫离开过我，我能养活自己“。

After graduating from Pan American, however, Lozano was accepted into a summer program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She had planned to become a science teacher, but her experience at the NIH set her on a new trajectory.

“It was absolutely cutting-edge research,” she says. “I loved it. I was learning so much, and I had a great mentor who I still keep in touch with. That’s when I really decided research is what I wanted to do.”

洛萨诺的NIH经验导致了一个工作机会，甚至更远的地方 - 德国慕尼黑，在那里，她被聘为著名的马克斯普朗克研究所实验室技术员。Although she loved working as a tech, and enjoyed the opportunity to travel around Europe, Lozano knew she wanted to become a researcher in her own right, so she returned to the U.S. and got her doctorate at Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University under renowned cancer researcher Arnold Levine.

这是在普林斯顿是洛萨诺第一次开始克隆和操纵鼠标DNA来研究癌症如何发展。移动到休斯敦参加MD安德森后不久，她的导师莱文发表了一篇论文，宣布p53基因的发现为肿瘤抑制调节细胞分裂，防止肿瘤的生长。由于它的抗癌能力，P53有时也被称为“基因组的守护者。”

P53的力量

洛萨诺建立在莱文的通过突破establishing that p53 is a transcription factor.她的研究小组随后又认识到两种蛋白，MDM2和MDM4，在阻断p53基因发挥作用的生理意义 - 从而使肿瘤生长。通过操纵这些蛋白质，洛萨诺认为，临床医生可能在某一天能够阻止肿瘤在分子水平上其蔓延。制药公司已经开发出了基于她的研究实验性治疗，但到目前为止，他们的人用太毒了。188bet体育网址

“I think every tumor cell has to somehow dampen p53,” she explains. “For about 90% of tumor cells, we know what the pathway is – it’s either delete p53, or neutralize it by making lots of the inhibitors Mdm2 or Mdm4. We need to discover how the other 10% undermine the p53 pathway.”

Over the years, Lozano has fielded several offers from rival cancer centers. What keeps her at MD Anderson, she says, is the synergy and collaboration of the center’s basic scientists and its clinicians. It’s the same kind of intellectual cross-fertilization that led to her insight into p53 as a transcription factor back in 1987.

“I’m not a physician, but I understand that some of the problems they encounter are problems that I can study as a basic scientist,” she says. “We wouldn’t be the number one cancer hospital without the underlying the research that drives patient care. That collaboration is what keeps me here.”

了解更多关于洛萨诺的生活和事业征服杂志。