NEC Trustee Named Professor Emerita by University of Texas Board of Regents

Dr. Karen Adler Storthz has been named Professor Emerita at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to honor her 26 years of service. Dr. Storthz is a member of the New England College Board of Trustees where she has served since 2004.

Her expertise and research has focused on the association of viruses with certain cancers, in particular, human papilloma viruses and their connection to oral and cervical cancers. Her laboratory was one of the first to demonstrate the association of human papilloma viruses and oral cancers.

Dr. Storthz is one of the inventors of the technology licensed to Assurance Biosciences, Inc., a biotechnology company in Houston, where she is currently Research Director. The company, founded in 2010, is developing a saliva based biomarker test as a companion test to mammograms that will help to distinguish benign findings from malignant findings. The company is currently collecting samples from three clinical trial sites and anticipates having the test on the market by mid-2012.

According to Dr. Storthz, the non-invasive test will have a significant impact on the cost of medical care in the future. As a diagnostic, the test will reduce the number of ultrasounds and MRIs and create a faster process from a suspicious mammogram to a biopsy-confirmed diagnosis.

Dr. Storthz continues to serve as a Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and continues her research on oral and cervical cancer. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans.