Dr. Masood’s visiting professorship at Institut Courie focuses on latest cancer detection technologies

During a visiting professorship at the Institut Courie in Paris, University of Florida physician Shahla Masood is helping senior cancer specialists evaluate advanced techniques for identifying genetic and cellular changes that precede cancer.

Dr. Masood, who directs the Breast Health Center at Shands Jacksonville---an affiliate of the University of Florida and Shands HealthCare---is collaborating with Institut Courie faculty who are applying new imaging technology and molecular biology techniques to define the genetic profiles of patients with pre-malignant breast disease. The Paris group is employing these techniques in monitoring a large group of women at high risk for breast cancer.

Masood’s experience in Paris, Nov. 11-Dec. 10, is aimed at paving the ground for a new molecular pathology laboratory at Shands Jacksonville. The new lab will be devoted to the study of the genetic profiles of individuals at risk for breast or prostate cancer.

At the Institut Courie and at a medical conference in Belgium, she will present lectures on a cellular grading system she developed for defining and tracking changes in breast lesions that may be precursors to malignancy. Updated information on studies of her cytopathology approach appeared in the September 2001 issue of Advances in Anatomic Pathology.

Masood’s visiting professorship at the Institut Courie will include two additional month-long visits during 2002. She is collaborating with Dominique Stoppa-Lyonett, M.D., Ph.D., chief of genetic screening and counseling for high-risk breast cancer patients; Phillippe Vielh, M.D., Ph.D., director of cytopathology and cell cytometry in the department of tumor biology; and Krishna Cough, M.D., director of the department of surgery at the Institut Courie.