Valerie M. Weaver PhD

Valerie M. Weaver, Ph.D., is the Director of the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration in the Department of Surgery. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Waterloo in Biochemistry/Chemistry in 1985, continuing her education for an Honors Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at the University of Ottawa (graduating Summa cum Laude). Dr. Weaver earned her doctorate degree, Ph.D., from the University of Ottawa in Biochemistry in 1992.

After receiving her doctorate, Dr. Weaver was awarded a National Sciences Research Council fellowship to work in the Apoptosis Research Group in the Molecular Cell Biology Division at the Institute for Biological Science, after which she joined the laboratory of Dr. Mina J Bissell at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley in the Cancer and Cell Biology Group in the Life Sciences Division. During her postdoctoral training with Dr. Bissell, Dr. Weaver was awarded a Canadian Medical Research Council Fellowship and a California Breast Cancer Program Grant to develop a unique human breast tumor progression model that when grown within a three-dimensional basement membrane recapitulates the morphological phenotype of breast tumors. Her studies on stromal epithelial interactions and integrin signaling revealed for the first time the plasticity of the breast cancer phenotype demonstrating how tissue phenotype is dominant over tumor genotype, for which she received a distinguished postdoctoral award. Dr. Weaver's postdoctoral studies also identified reciprocal links between tissue architecture and growth factor receptor signaling as well as the nuclear organization and illustrated how the formation of three-dimensional polarized breast epithelial tissue is rendered highly resistant to classic anti-tumor therapies.

In late 1999, Dr. Weaver was recruited to the University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology where she joined the Institute for Medicine and Engineering to continue her studies exploring the role of tissue architecture on breast cancer behavior using organotypic models. While on faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Weaver began conducting interdisciplinary studies with colleagues in Bioengineering on the role of extracellular matrix stiffness on breast cell behavior which led to a landmark publication demonstrating how tissue tension modifies integrin signaling to disrupt breast tissue morphogenesis and induce breast tumor behavior.