Mina Bissell

Mina J. Bissell, Ph.D., is an Iranian American biologist and a world-recognized leader in the area of the role of extracellular matrix (ECM) and microenvironment in regulation of tissue-specific function, with special emphasis on breast cancer.

Mina Bissell, Ph.D., biologist

She was born in Tehran, Iran and brought up in a well-educated and well-to-do family. By the time she graduated from high school, Bissell was the top graduate in her year in Iran.^[1] A family friend, through the American Friends of Iran, encouraged Bissell to come to the United States.^[2] She enrolled at Bryn Mawr, then transferred to Radcliffe_College where she earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry. She obtained a PhD in bacteriology from Harvard Medical School and was awarded an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.^[3]

She joined Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory as a staff biochemist in 1972 and subsequently became a Senior Scientist, Director of Cell & Molecular Biology, Director of the Life Sciences Division, and Distinguished Scientist.^[4] In 1996, she received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award and medal, the highest scientific honor bestowed by the United States Department of Energy. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, Bissell is recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Mellon Award from the University of Pittsburgh, the Eli Lilly/Clowes Award of the American Association for Cancer Research, and the Medal of Honor from the American Cancer Society.^[5]

She is the former head of life sciences at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Her work started over 30 years ago on the effect of tissue architecture and the role of the cellular microenvironment on cancer still has become increasingly influential in the field of cancer biology and cancer therapeutics. She is credited with the radical but increasingly accepted notion that phenotype can dominate over genotype in normal development and disease.^[6]

Bissell and her colleague, William Ole Peterson, have developed 3D culture in cancer research. They have shown non-tumorgenic (normal-like) mammary epithelial cells form monolayer spherical acini with hollow lumen and tumorgenic mammary epithelial cells form filled bowl irregular acini (Petersen OW, et al. PNAS 89(19):9064-9068 ). She has published about 300 articles and book chapters.[1]

Preceded by J. Michael Bishop

ASCB Presidents 1997

Succeeded by Elizabeth Blackburn

References

1. ^ ASCB.org
2. ^ ASCB.org
3. ^ Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
4. ^ Bissell Lab, Lawrence Berkeley Labs
5. ^ letter from the American Cancer Society, February 22, 2008
6. ^ New York Times, December 29, 2009

External links

• Testing the Boundaries: an interview with Mina J. Bissell
• Interview with Mina Bissell on the website of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
• Some (slightly old) biographical information
• New York Times article on Mina Bissell

Persondata
Name	Bissell, Mina
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Date of birth
Place of birth	Tehran, Iran
Date of death
Place of death