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Dr Doris Benbrook

Dr Doris Benbrook

Professor and Director of Research, Department of Gynecologic Oncology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA

Dr. Doris Mangiaracina Benbrook is a professor at the University of Oklahoma where she serves as Director of the Women's Cancer Program. During her PhD thesis research in biochemistry at Loyola University Medical School in Illinois, she demonstrated that the target of the antibiotic Norfloxacin in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is DNA gyrase. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Burnham Institute in California, she cloned nuclear receptors for thyroid hormone, retinoic acid, and cholesterol. During her research fellowship in the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, England, she demonstrated crosstalk between the AP-1 and CREB signal transduction pathways. 

Dr. Benbrook's past research at the University of Oklahoma focused on developing heteroarotinoid compounds selectively targeted at specific retinoid receptors to improve the therapeutic ratios of retinoids as pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of cancer. The current generation of Flexible Heteroarotinoids (Flex-Hets) developed by her research team acts independently of the retinoid receptors and associated toxicities. The lead Flex-Het compound, SHetA2, is currently in preclinical development at the USA National Cancer Institute's Rapid Access to Intervention Development (RAPID) program. Her current research includes a systems biology approach to study the processes of carcinogenesis and chemoprevention in efforts to identify new biological targets. 

Since 1991, Dr. Benbrook has been an active member of the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG), an international cooperative clinical trials group, where she has been involved in development of translational research to address significant clinical questions in the GOG clinical trials. At national and international levels, she has served as member and chair of multiple grant review panels and on the editorial advisory boards of multiple journals.

Updated 8 March 2024