Dr. Laukaitis' professional goal is to understand the genetic and environmental risk factors that predispose individuals to cancer in order to treat neoplasia before cancer develops. Her training and board certification in Medical Genetics have provided her with expertise, and to experience caring for people at high-risk for breast and other cancers due to mutations in BRCA1, BRCA2, APC and mismatch repair genes. In Dr. Laukaitis' laboratory, they seek explanations for high-risk families without identified mutations. Dr. Laukaitis has experience working with WBF and UDCA sample genotyping and experience interpreting genetic data that influences cancer risk.
My professional goal is to provide individual risk assessment and counseling to develop a plan for treating neoplasia before metastatic cancer develops in people at high-risk of cancer because of genetic factors. My training and board certification in Medical Genetics have provided me with expertise and experience caring for people at high-risk for breast cancer due to mutations in BRCA1, BRCA2, APC and mismatch repair genes genes. I will couple this with my laboratory background to translate advances understanding additional genes influencing cancer risk into new clinical tests for my patients. I will seek to apply these advances to all of my patients, regardless of racial, ethnic, or socio-economic background. A second research direction addresses appropriate targeting of chemoprevention strategies. I am participating in a project to test the safety of using DFMO and sulindac as a chemopreventive strategy in children with FAP, which we hope to follow with a study of efficacy.