Robert Clarke, PhD, DSc, FRSBiol, FRSChem

Executive Director, Hormel Institute
I. J. Holton Chair in Cancer Research, Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics
University of Minnesota, Austin, Minnesota, USA

Dr. Clarke is a cancer integrative and systems biologist serving as the Executive Director of The Hormel Institute at the University of Minnesota and an Adjunct Professor of Oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center (Washington, DC). He was previously the Dean for Research and Associate Vice President at Georgetown University Medical Center, where he also co-led the Breast Cancer Research Program at the Georgetown-Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. As an internationally recognized leader in breast cancer research, Dr. Robert Clarke studies how hormones, growth factors, and other related molecules affect breast cancer, and how breast cancers become resistant to hormonal and cytotoxic chemotherapies. He has broad expertise that includes estrogens, antiestrogens, aromatase inhibitors, cell signaling, bioinformatics, drug resistance, signal transduction, and systems biology. He has developed a series of endocrine resistant breast cancer models that are being widely used in the field. More recently, Dr. Clarke and his colleagues have identified a systems biology-based molecular signaling model in breast cancer that involves several novel oncogenes and suppressor genes. This integrated network incorporates cell stress signaling, protein misfolding (unfolded protein response), and communication among the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, and nucleus of breast cancer cells. Dr. Clarke served as a member (2010–2014) and as Chair (2011–2013) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) study section Basic Mechanisms of Cancer Therapeutics; he had previously served as Chair of the Basic Science study section for the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2002–2008), now known as the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Dr. Clarke has also chaired multiple study sections for the US Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. He is also on the editorial boards of international peer-reviewed journals. For example, Dr. Clarke is a Senior Editor for Cancer Research, an Associate Editor for Endocrine-Related Cancer, and an editorial board member of over a dozen journals including Clinical Cancer Research and Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Dr. Clarke is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK), Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), Royal Society of Medicine (UK), and American Association for the Advancement of Science (USA).