Orthodox woman scientist breaks ground in breast cancer research

NEW YORK– Dr. Anya Alayev may deal with life on the microscopic level, but the ramifications of her work are anything but small.

For three years Alayev, a post-doctoral fellow at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, has taken cell sample after cell sample from breast cancer patients. Each experiment putting her one petri dish closer to understanding how aberrations in cell signaling pathways contribute to breast cancer and other diseases.

These mTOR signaling pathways, regulate cellular metabolism, growth and proliferation. Uncontrolled cell proliferation can cause many disorders, including cancer. The ultimate goal for researchers like Alayev is to develop new treatment strategies that would shut these pathways down.

“It’s very exciting because although it’s small, you can do a lot with the work,” Alayev said. “At some point you move into animal studies and then, down the road, clinical trials.”

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women and second leading cause of cancer death in women in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. In Israel, about 4500 women are diagnosed with the cancer each year, according to the Israel Cancer Association.

It’s the kind of work that requires patience and repetition. And it’s the kind of work that recently won the attention of the American Association of Cancer Research, AACR.

Alayev is one of five who received awards to attend the conference. The committee considered the work of graduate and medical students, postdoctoral fellows and physicians-in-training who are AACR members.The association recently selected Alayev to receive the AACR-Aflac Incorporated Scholar-in-Training Award and she traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in September to present a poster of her work at the “Targeting the PI3K-mTOR Network in Cancer.”

Research on mTOR inhibition is a growing branch in science. Attending the conference means a lot to Alayev, who emphasized the importance of hearing leading experts in the field discuss cutting edge research.

“It’s a collaborative conference and that’s very exciting,” she said.

It’s not the first time Alayev’s work has been recognized. She was also awarded a National Cancer Center post-doctoral fellowship grant for 2012-14.

Originally from Moldova, Alayev graduated with a degree in biology from Stern College for Women in 2003. She received a PhD from YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the field of Developmental and Molecular Biology in 2010. Alayev has been a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Marina Holz’s lab at Stern College since 2011.

“Anya is a talented scientist,” said Holz, associate professor and the Doris and Ira Kukin Chair in Biology at Stern College. “I am incredibly proud of her work and I am confident she will continue to make significant research contributions. Anya is a good colleague and a great mentor to the undergraduate students that train in the lab, who view her as a role model.”