Affiliation: University of Edinburgh, Centre for Inflammation Research

Dr. Jeanette Astorga Johansson obtained her PhD in 2007 from the University of Gothenburg, where she studied multiple developmental processes regulated by the FoxF family of transcription factors. The same year, she moved to Edinburgh to study in vitro human stem cell differentiation and later joined the lab of Dr. Denis Headon to work on the cellular pathways controlling mouse skin patterning. In 2016, she joined the zebrafish lab of Professor Elizabeth Patton where she uncovered the molecular function of prl3, a metastasis-associated phosphatase in melanocyte regeneration and cancer. She joined the lab of Dr. Yi Feng in 2020, to continue her skin cancer work using the inducible, tissue-specific HRAS G12 model established by the Feng lab. Her aim is to investigate the cellular signaling required for the establishment of the pre-neoplastic niche and finding targetable pathways that prevent early metastasis.