The James Graham Brown Foundation Endowed Chair
Professor of Toxicology
Dr. Daret St. Clair is the Associate Director for Basic research and a co-leader for the Redox Injury and Repair Program at the Markey Cancer Center in USA. Her research focuses on investigating the fundamental mechanisms by which reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) contribute to normal tissue injury and cancer formation. Her laboratory cloned the human gene for the primary superoxide removal enzyme in the mitochondria, manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), and made the seminal observation that expression of MnSOD suppresses neoplastic transformation and protects cancer therapy-induced normal tissue injury. These studies provide the proof-of-concept data for targeting mitochondria as a novel approach to enhance cancer therapy efficacy with reduced normal tissue injury. Dr. St. Clair has been continuously funded by NCI grants since 1989 and serves as the principle investigator for the NIH T32 training grant in Oxidative Stress and Nutrition since 2005. She serves as a chartered member of three different NCI study sections and serve as an external advisor board member for multiple cancer research programs. She is an Editorial Board member of the Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Redox Biology, Guest Editor, Antioxidant & Redox Signaling special issue on SODs, and Honorary Editorial Board Member of Nutrition and Dietary Supplements.
Become the inaugural holder of the James Graham Brown Endowed Chair in Neurosciences since 2002. Dr. St. Clair received a D.Sc. Honoris quasa from Mahidol University in 2009 and the Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial Prize from the University of Kentucky in 2011.
The James Graham Brown Foundation Endowed Chair