Dr. Rui has made a series of contributions to increased understanding of the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction by receptors for prolactin and related cytokines and hormones. Dr. Rui was the first to isolate a prolactin receptor-associated tyrosine kinase, and to identify this molecule as Janus kinase-2. Dr. Rui's laboratory has maintained a focus on prolactin receptor function with a primary goal of understanding the role of downstream Jak-Stat pathways and their aberrations in breast cancer.

Activation of Stat5 is a strong favorable prognostic marker in breast cancer and an invasion-suppressive role of Stat5 in human breast cancer may represent a biological mechanism. Loss of Stat5 is further associated with increased risk of antiestrogen resistance. Dr. Rui and his team have also invented and applied a new technology to generate high density tumor tissue arrays for high-through-put molecular profiling. Dr. Rui is the PI of a $6.7 million, 5 year Komen Promise Grant to a consortium of multidisciplinary investigators to classify malignant breast tumors based on expression of druggable target proteins for improved personalized cancer care. The consortium project also involves a novel Bayesian adaptive biomarker-centered Phase II clinical trial of a Parp-inhibitor in the neoadjuvant setting for triple-negative breast cancer.

cancer; breast cancer; hormone; endocrinology; prolactin; growth hormone; estrogen; glucocorticoid; steroid hormones; Jak2; Stat5; Stat5a; Stat5b; immunohistochemistry; pathology; biomarker; early detection; microarray; tissue microarray; mouse modeling; EGFR; Her2; ErbB2; prolactin receptor