Patricia Steeg

Patricia Steeg is a cancer researcher working in the field of breast cancer metastasis, and was the first person to discover the NME1 gene, which spreads breast cancer to other parts of the body.

Education Steeg attended the University of Maryland, which is where she got her PhD in 1982. When the NME1 gene is introduced in highly metastatic breast cancer line it decreased the potential for the cancer to spread anywhere from 50 to 90 percent. The NME1 gene reduces the likelihood of cancer spreading by producing a protein referred to as NME1 protein. This drug is less cancerous than chemotherapy, and has shown promise in working against melanoma, colon cancer, and small-cell lung cancer.