November 13, 2023
Veterinary college's Clarenburg Lecture to feature cancer/fibrosis researcher
As part of its annual Clarenburg Lecture series, the College of Veterinary Medicine will host Ellen Puré on Thursday, Nov. 16. Her lecture topic is "Stroma as a Therapeutic Vulnerability in Solid Tumors," and will be presented at 4 p.m. in the Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health Auditorium.
The Rudolf Clarenburg Lectureship was established in 1996 to honor the late Rudolf Clarenburg, professor of physiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. This lecture series brings nationally acclaimed scientists to Kansas State University to discuss their research interests with students and faculty throughout the university.
Puré is a Grace Lansing Lambert professor, past chairwoman of biomedical sciences and professor of systems pharmacology and translational therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a doctorate in immunology at the UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, in 1981.
In 1992, Puré moved to Philadelphia, where she was a faculty member at the Wistar Institute before moving to the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. She is the associate director of the Cancer Research Institute and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and Matrix Biology. She is the founding senior editor of Cancer Immunology Research.
Puré's research focuses on the cellular and molecular basis of inflammation and fibrosis. She studies the basic mechanisms involved in these processes and the contribution of these processes to fibrotic diseases and cancer. Her lab has made important contributions to understanding the roles of stromal cells and extracellular matrix remodeling in tissue fibrosis and in cancer risk, initiation, progression and metastasis.
Puré's lab is developing novel therapeutic approaches to target stroma to treat fibrosis and cancer. In 2019, she was named a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She co-founded Capstan Therapeutics in 2021.
The Clarenburg Lecture series is made possible by the generous support received from the Clarenburg family to honor and recognize the significant contributions made by Clarenburg to the Department of Anatomy and Physiology and the College of Veterinary Medicine.