Jennifer A. Pietenpol

Jennifer Pietenpol is Chief Scientific and Strategic Officer, Executive Vice-President for Research, Professor of Biochemistry, and Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Pietenpol additionally serves as the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Pietenpol's research focuses on uncovering the molecular basis of epithelial cancers with an emphasis on the signaling pathways of the p53 family of tumor supressor proteins within breast cancers, specifically in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Pietenpol is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012) and the American Association for Cancer Research Academy (2022). In 2016 she was selected to serve on then Vice-President Joe Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Program's Blue Ribbon Panel.

Education Pietenpol studied biology at Carleton College. She received her PhD in cell biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1990. She was a postdoc fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She became an assistant professor of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt School of Medicine in 1994 and professor of Biochemistry and Otolaryngology in 2002.

Research

Her group successfully classified TNBC into 4 molecular subtypes―basal-like 1 (BL1), basal-like 2 (BL2), mesenchymal (M), and luminal androgen receptor (LAR). This classification framework has been validated and has informed multiple clinical trials.

Recently, she and her team have focused on LAR TNBC, which is a rare subtype of TNBC that expresses androgen receptors, making it difficult to clinically treat.