Elizabeth A. Mittendorf MD, PhD

Dr. Mittendorf is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. At MD Anderson, she focuses both her clinical and laboratory efforts on the study of breast cancer with a specific interest in breast cancer immunotherapy. She is the Principal Investigator on a number of clinical protocols including the phase III PRESENT (Prevention of Recurrence in Early-Stage, Node-Positive Breast Cancer with Low to Intermediate HER2 Expression with NeuVax Treatment) study, a multicenter phase II trial investigating the efficacy of two additional HER2-derived peptide vaccines and a single institution investigator-initiated phase I trial evaluating combination immunotherapy with vaccines and trastuzumab. Her laboratory work is focused on identifying novel tumor antigens and investigating aspects of the tumor microenvironment that impact the response to vaccination. Specifically she is investigating cyclin E, a critical cell cycle regulator that is dysregulated in breast cancer as a target for vaccination as well as the impact of neutrophils present in the microenvironment as a link between innate immunity and adaptive immune responses to cancer.

This work is supported by an R00 award from the National Cancer Institute, a Developmental Project award form the MD Anderson Cancer Center Breast SPORE grant and a Clinical Investigator Award from the Society of Surgical Oncology and Komen for the Cure Foundation. Dr Mittendorf has published extensively on breast cancer immunotherapy as well as on subjects related to the clinical management of breast cancer patients to include sentinel lymph node dissection, small volume metastatic disease, and outcomes following administration of neoadjuvant chemotherapy.