She was a key member of the collaborative Stanford/Norway team that pioneered the use of DNA microarrays to measure global gene expression in solid tumors and that developed the currently accepted classification schema of breast cancer molecular subtypes based on gene expression profiles: including low and high proliferation luminal, ERBB2(HER2)-overexpressing, and basal-like breast cancers (then, focusing attention on triple-negative breast cancers, TNBCs). Her lab then refined RNA amplification techniques and developed expertise in the transcriptional profiling of tiny quantities of tumor tissue or RNA isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor samples. It also developed a bank of patient-derived TNBCs for preclinical drug testing.
