Judith Christman, Ph.D.
Prostate and breast cancer

Dr. Christman studies the role of DNA methylation in regulating gene expression. (Methylation inactivates tumor suppression in genes.) Dr. Christman's group was the first to show that by inhibiting the process that leads to methylation, tumor cells become more normal in appearance and behavior.

She and her collaborators have developed new inhibitors of methylation that should be less toxic than many agents currently used to treat cancer and are currently testing them in cell and animal models of cancer.

Dr. Christman has been professor and chairwoman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology since 1994. She was recently named a Stokes-Shackleford Professor at UNMC in honor of her contributions to the field of medicine. She earned her BA from New York University and her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Columbia University, both in New York.

In addition to researching prostate cancer, Dr. Christman also researches the role of estrogen in breast cancer development.