Ana I. Robles, Ph.D.

Dr. Ana I. Robles serves as Chief of the Diagnostics Evaluation Branch (DEB) in the DCTD Cancer Diagnosis Program. DEB aims to stimulate and support research to identify biomarkers of cancer diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and response to therapy and to develop these biomarkers into analytically and clinically validated in vitro diagnostics with clinical utility.

Dr. Robles joined the DCTD Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research (OCCPR) in 2018 as Program Director. She provides oversight to large international research consortia and leading genomic operations for proteogenomics programs. Previously, Dr. Robles was an Associate Scientist at the NCI, focused on molecular epidemiology and the identification and functional characterization of lung cancer biomarkers.

After graduating as a chemist in the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dr. Robles completed doctoral studies in cancer biology under the mentorship of Dr. Claudio Conti at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Texas. Dr. Robles then joined the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, NCI for postdoctoral training with Dr. Curt Harris.

Throughout twenty years’ experience working in a laboratory environment in the Intramural Program, Dr. Robles mentored over 40 students, trainees, and postdoctoral fellows. She received the NCI Director’s Innovation Award for her work leveraging DNA methylation for diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer. As a Program Director, Dr. Robles received two NCI Director's Awards, for Oversight of Programmatic Vision as part of the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium Team, and as part The Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) Team. She has co-authored over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Selected Publications

• Robles AI, Rodriguez-Puebla ML, Glick AB, et al. Reduced skin tumor development in cyclin D1-deficient mice highlights the oncogenic ras pathway in vivo. Genes Dev. 1998;12(16):2469-2474. doi:10.1101/gad.12.16.2469
• Robles AI, Arai E, Mathé EA, et al. An Integrated Prognostic Classifier for Stage I Lung Adenocarcinoma Based on mRNA, microRNA, and DNA Methylation Biomarkers. J Thorac Oncol. 2015;10(7):1037-1048. doi:10.1097/JTO.0000000000000560
• Lissa D, Ishigame T, Noro R, et al. HOXA9 methylation and blood vessel invasion in FFPE tissues for prognostic stratification of stage I lung adenocarcinoma patients. Lung Cancer. 2018;122:151-159. doi:10.1016/j.lungcan.2018.05.021
• Gillette MA, Satpathy S, Cao S, et al. Proteogenomic Characterization Reveals Therapeutic Vulnerabilities in Lung Adenocarcinoma. Cell. 2020;182(1):200-225.e35. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.013
• Anurag M, Jaehnig EJ, Krug K, et al. Proteogenomic Markers of Chemotherapy Resistance and Response in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. Cancer Discov. 2022;12(11):2586-2605. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-22-0200

Additional Links to Scientific Publications

• Scopus

Education

• PhD, Cancer Biology, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Texas, Houston, TX