Aurora Esquela-Kerscher

Aurora Esquela Kerscher’s laboratory aims to understand how noncoding RNA networks influence cancer progression and metastasis in human cells. Dr. Kerscher received her B.A. in Biology from Washington University in St Louis, Missouri in 1992 and completed a M.S. in Biotechnology in 1996 at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. In 2003, she earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her Ph.D. thesis work in Dr. Se-Jin Lee’s laboratory provided her with a firm foundation in mammalian development utilizing mouse models to elucidate the function of novel members of the TGF-Beta Family in liver and kidney organogenesis. Dr. Kerscher’s interest in microRNAs and their role in development and disease began during her postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Frank Slack’s laboratory at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. In 2007, Dr. Kerscher joined the faculty at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia and continued her research studying microRNAs and cancer. Dr. Kerscher is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology at EVMS and a member of the Leroy T. Canoles Jr. Cancer Research Center. EVMS houses one of the largest clinically defined urological biorepositories in the nation. Her lab has taken advantage of this unique resource and identified a subset of microRNAs that are closely associated with advanced forms of human prostate cancer. Her group aims to translate their work into effective clinical tools for aggressive and drug resistant from of prostate cancer.