Dr. Christopher Crum, M.D., Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

Guest Speaker

Dr. Christopher Crum is a Professor of Pathology and Director, Women’s and Perinatal Pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  His most recent studies have concentrated on a novel pathway and precursor lesion for ovarian serous carcinogenesis that arises in the distal fallopian tube.  He has been testing the hypothesis that many cases of the most lethal form of ovarian cancer, ovarian surface or peritoneal serous carcinoma, originates from the tubal fimbria.  He developed a protocol for sectioning and extensively examining the fimbriated end (SEE-FIM) in order to test his hypothesis.  His team of researchers has recently characterized a novel precursor to pelvic serous carcinoma that is present in benign appearing mucosa in the distal fallopian tube, which they term “p53 signature”.  The data obtained has allowed them to formulate a “Serous carcinogenic sequence in the distal fallopian tube” for which the p53 signature shares several risk factors for ovarian cancer and is postulated to be a precursor or surrogate marker for pelvic serous cancers. Dr. Crum will be presenting his findings in Symposium II:  Etiology and Prevention – Cells of Origin and Stem Cells.