Brinkman, Ashley - Date Last Updated: 12/12/2011

Ashley Brinkman - Email
PhD Candidate - Started Fall 2010
Hometown: West Allis, WI
Lab of Wei Xu

Undergraduate Work
2010 - BS in Molecular Biology from UW-Madison

Interests/Hobbies
I enjoy anything involving music, food, sports, being outdoors, and my friends/family. I also like to spend time volunteering and playing volleyball or softball.

Awards
May 2011 - MRC-SOT Young Investigator Award

Membership
2011-December - Society of Toxicology

Why I Joined METC
While working on my undergraduate degree at UW-Madison, I completely fell in love with the campus, the city, and the people. In addition to being a great scientific hub, there's always something to do here (shopping at the Farmer's Market, relaxing at the terrace, going to Badger football games, eating Babcock ice cream...). What drew me to the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Center was the enormous amount of diverse and interesting research being done by the professors. It's a highly respected program and our mentors and teachers are truly world-class. In addition, our incoming class sizes are small enough that each one of us receives plenty of attention and guidance.

Research
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous environmental and dietary contaminants that can be found in tobacco smoke, grilled meats, crude oil, and as products of incomplete fuel combustion. PAHs preferentially bind to the intracellular aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), which acts as a xenobiotic sensor to induce the expression of various phase I and II metabolizing enzymes. In addition to acting through the AhR, some PAHs have been shown to directly bind to both estrogen receptor (ER) a and b. This “promiscuity” of ligands may be an indicator that there is interplay between the AhR and ER signaling pathways. In fact, various mechanisms of functional crosstalk between AhR and ERa have been described. The relationship between AhR and ERb, however, is poorly understood. While evidence supporting a causal role of environmental PAH exposure in the development of breast cancer in humans is unclear, these contaminants and their metabolites remain a significant risk factor. Elucidating the crosstalk between AhR and ERb may give us insight into the impacts of PAH exposure on human breast cancer, particularly for aggressive triple negative breast cancers (which lack expression of ERa, progesterone receptor [PR], and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 [HER2]).

In addition to my AhR/ERb crosstalk project, I am interested in examining resistance to aromatase inhibitor therapy. Aromatase is a cytochrome P450 enzyme that catalyzes hydroxylation reactions to convert androgens to estrogens (estrone and estradiol, for example). Inhibitors of this key enzyme are particularly effective in the treatment of post-menopausal women with hormone-dependent breast cancers. Unfortunately, resistance to aromatase inhibitors does occur. My work in this area will be aimed at understanding the role of the local cellular environment in affecting the proliferation and growth patterns of estrogen receptor a positive breast epithelial cells and if this cellular communication contributes to aromatase inhibitor resistance. We are specifically interested in paracrine signaling between pre-adipocytes, (which are undifferentiated fat cells that express the aromatase enzyme), and breast epithelial cells. To examine these relationships, I will be using microfluidic co-culture devices, which are ideal for manipulating and assessing cell-cell interactions.

Graduate Seminar Presentations

09/16/12
TBA

Date Last Updated: 12/12/2011 webteam@med.wisc.edu