Elizabeth obtained her BSc. Hons in comparative biochemistry and physiology at Queen Mary College, University of London before moving to The Medical College of St Bartholomew’s Hospital (also University of London) to undertake a PhD in steroid hormones and breast cancer under the supervision of Professor Gavin Vinson. After a short post-doc period at St. Bartholomew’s, she moved to the Christie Hospital in Manchester to lead an academic translational research group in oncology with a focus on breast cancer and mammary gland biology. Her lab also worked on other tumour types including those of the prostate, colon, and rectum as well as providing a steroid receptor and HER-2 measurement service for breast cancer patients in the North West of England.
After 16 years at the Christie Hospital, she joined AstraZeneca UK as a translational science strategist in oncology, where she was responsible for the later stage preclinical biology programs of a number of different drugs across a range of tumour types, enabling the transition from drug discovery into clinical development and then registration. In 2011, Elizabeth joined oncology discovery at Boehringer-Ingelheim as Scientific Director in External Research where she was responsible for generating strategy and competitive intelligence to support oncology research and development. While at Boehringer-Ingelheim, she supported the entire oncology portfolio from small molecule inhibitors to antibodies against immuno-oncology targets and across the entire value chain from target selection up to the end of Phase II clinical development.
Dr. Anderson has extensive knowledge of solid and haematological tumor types as well as novel methods of cell and tissue explant culture, biomarker development, validation and quality control of immunohistochemistry, development of PDX animal models for the study of normal and malignant human tissue. She has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and is currently a Deputy Editor for Breast Cancer Research, a specialist oncology journal with a 2y impact factor of 6.142. She has presented extensively at national and international conferences.
Publications
- Robson H, Meyer S, Shalet SM, Anderson E, Roberts S and Eden OB (2002) Platinum agents in the treatment of osteosarcoma – efficacy of cisplatin versus carboplatin in human osteosarcoma cell lines. Med Pediatr Oncol 39, 573-580.
- Rhodes A, Jasani B, Anderson E, Dodson AR and Balaton AJ (2002) Evaluation of HER-2/neu immunohistochemical assay sensitivity and scoring on formalin-fixed and paraffin-processed cell lines and breast tumors: a comparative study involving results from laboratories in 21 countries. Am J Clin Pathol 118, 408-417.
- Cristofanilli M, Valero V, Mangalik A, Royce M, Rabinowitz I, Arena FP, Kroener JF, Curcio E, Watkins C, Bacus D, Cora EM, Anderson E and Magill PJ (2010) Phase II, randomized trial to compare anastrozole combined with gefitinib or placebo in post-menopausal women with hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer. Clin Cancer Res 16, 1904-1914.
- Thompson AM, Jordan LB, Quinlan P, Anderson E, Skene A, Dewar JA, Purdie CA; Breast Recurrence in Tissues Study Group (2010) Prospective comparison of switches in biomarker status between primary and recurrent breast cancer: the Breast Recurrence In Tissues Study (BRITS). Breast Cancer Research 12:R 92
- Kuter I, Gee JM, Hegg R, Singer CF, Badwe RA, Lowe ES, Emeribe UA, Anderson E, Sapunar F, Finlay P, Nicholson RI, Bines J, Harbeck N (2012) Dose-dependent change in biomarkers during neoadjuvant endocrine therapy with fulvestrant: results from NEWEST, a randomized Phase II trial. Breast Cancer Res Treat 133; 237-246
- Alferez DG, Goodlad RA, Odedra R, Sini P, Crafter C, Ryan AJ, Wedge SR, Anderson E, Wilkinson RW (2012) Inhibition of Aurora-B kinase activity confers antitumour activity in preclinical mouse models of early and advanced gastrointestinal neoplasia. Int J Oncol 41; 1475-85.
- Patani N, Dunbier AK, Anderson H, Ghazoui Z, Ribas R, Anderson E, Gao Q, A’hern R, Mackay A, Lindemann J, Wellings R, Walker J, Kuter I, Martin LA, Dowsett M (2014) Differences in the transcriptional response to fulvestrant and estrogen deprivation in ER-positive breast cancer . Clin Cancer Res 20; 3963-73
- Robertson JFR, Lindemann J, Garnett S, Anderson E, Nicholson RI, Kuter I, Gee JMW (2014) A good drug made better: the fulvestrant dose response story. Clinical Breast Cancer doi:10.1016/j.clbc.2014.06.005
- Hickman JA, Graeser R, de Hoogt R, Vidic S, Brito C, Gutekunst M, van der Kuip H; IMI PREDECT Consortium (2014) Three dimensional models of cancer for pharmacology and cancer cell biology: capturing tumor complexity in vitro/ex vivo. Biotechnol J 9; 1115-1128
- Estrada MF, Rebelo SP, Davies EJ, Pinto MT, Pereira H, Santo VE, Smalley MJ, Barry ST, Gualda EJ, Alves PM, Anderson E, Brito C (2016). Modelling the tumour microenvironment in long-term microencapsulated 3D co-cultures recapitulates phenotypic features of disease progression. Biomaterials 78; 5061.