Ryan grew up on a farm and dairy in Ireland. She has five sisters. Ryan always enjoyed science and decided she wanted to be a cancer researcher as a teenager.[1] She completed her undergraduate training in biochemistry at University College Cork in 2001.
As a postdoc at NCI, she was involved in research that bridged both basic science and translational molecular epidemiology. Initially, Ryan studied populations of European descent, but it became clear that, within the United States, significant disparities in incidence and survival existed across populations.[1]
Career
In 2013, Ryan became a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Stadtman Investigator in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis at the NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR). Her work focused on health disparities related to lung cancer across different populations.[4]
Ryan left NIH in April 2021 and joined MiNA Therapeutics, where she is VP, Oncology and Immunology Research.[5]
Ryan was among the first to demonstrate asymmetric division of DNA in cancer. This process is thought to underpin how tumors self-renew and regenerate. Since then, her studies have examined the roles of the tumor microenvironment and p53 in regulating this process in lung cancer. Her lab oversees an integrative and translational approach to lung cancer research, examining the genetic, environmental, and biological contributions to racial disparities in lung cancer incidence. Her research program also developed biomarkers for the early detection of lung cancer.[3]
Ryan, Bríd M.; O’Donovan, Norma; Duffy, Michael J. (2009). "Survivin: A new target for anti-cancer therapy". Cancer Treatment Reviews. 35 (7): 553–562. doi:10.1016/j.ctrv.2009.05.003.
Greathouse, K. Leigh; White, James R.; Vargas, Ashely J.; Bliskovsky, Valery V.; Beck, Jessica A.; von Muhlinen, Natalia; Polley, Eric C.; Bowman, Elise D.; Khan, Mohammed A.; Robles, Ana I.; Cooks, Tomer; Ryan, Bríd M.; Padgett, Noah; Dzutsev, Amiran H.; Trinchieri, Giorgio; Pineda, Marbin A.; Bilke, Sven; Meltzer, Paul S.; Hokenstad, Alexis N.; Stickrod, Tricia M.; Walther-Antonio, Marina R.; Earl, Joshua P.; Mell, Joshua C.; Krol, Jaroslaw E.; Balashov, Sergey V.; Bhat, Archana S.; Ehrlich, Garth D.; Valm, Alex; Deming, Clayton; Conlan, Sean; Oh, Julia; Segre, Julie A.; Harris, Curtis C. (2018). "Interaction between the microbiome and TP53 in human lung cancer". Genome Biology. 19 (1). doi:10.1186/s13059-018-1501-6. ISSN1474-760X. PMC6109311. PMID30143034.
References
^ ab"Trans-NIH Recruits". NIH Intramural Research Program. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ ab"NCI Staff Directory". National Cancer Institute. Retrieved 4 February 2022. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.