Research Interests
Keywords: Computational Genomics, Breast cancer research, Cancer Biology, Cancer genetics, Bioinformatics, Translational biology, RNA sequencing, Spatial transcriptomics, AURORA.
Dr. Garcia-Recio received her Ph.D. in the School of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, Spain. In 2015, she joined Dr. Charles Perou’s laboratory at the University of North Carolina at the Department of Genetics and was awarded a Susan G. Komen Postdoctoral Fellow to pursue the identification of genetic drivers in non-basal breast cancer subtypes. During her postdoc, Dr. Garcia-Recio identified a potential genetic driver of metastatic disease, the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR4) gene. She demonstrated that the survival activity and proliferation derived from FGFR4 activation induced the departure from luminal-like programming toward HER2E-like subtype, which predicted a worse clinical outcome for breast cancer patients. She became Research Associate in 2020 and has been appointed as Assistant Professor in August 2022 to continue working on finding new target therapies for metastatic patients.
As part of the molecular working group in the Aurora US project, her goal is to find the key targets of metastatic tumors in the next few years. Through the combination of state-of-the-art sequencing technology and high-resolution microscopy, her goal is to improve the accuracy of defining gene expression profiles of breast cancer patients. Additionally, by using in vivo mouse models and human breast tumor biopsies she hopes to estimate the heterogeneity of epithelial and immune cell types in primary and metastatic paired tumors and identify breast cancer drivers specifically associated with metastasis.
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Publications:
Susana Garcia Recio in UNC Genetics News

October 9, 2023
Department of Genetics Publications for September 24th – October 7th, 2023
Department of Genetics faculty, postdocs, students and collaborators published 12 papers during September 24th - October 7th 2023.

January 26, 2023
Study identifies molecular differences between primary breast cancer and its metastases
Findings may provide insights on the development and progression of metastatic breast cancer.

November 15, 2022
Dr. Susana Garcia Recio Receives Marion R. Wright Award for Scientific Excellence
Susana Garcia Recio, PhD (Assistant Professor, Genetics) was recognized by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) as a recipient of the Marion R. Wright Award for Scientific Excellence.

August 25, 2022
Department of Genetics Welcomes New Faculty Members
The Department of Genetics is pleased to welcome Dara McDougal, MS as Assistant Professor/Genetic Counselor and Susana Garcia-Recio, PhD as Assistant Professor.

August 1, 2022
Department of Genetics Publications for July 17th – 30th, 2022
Department of Genetics faculty, postdocs, students and collaborators published 11 papers during July 17th – 30th, 2022.

May 9, 2022
Department of Genetics Publications April 24th – May 7th, 2022
Department of Genetics faculty, postdocs, students and collaborators published 14 papers during April 24th – May 7th, 2022.

December 9, 2021
Molecular aspects of ovarian and endometrial tumors mapped to the level of a single cell
For the first time, researchers at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, led by Assistant Professor of Genetics Hector Franco, PhD, have determined, cell-by-cell, the genetic and epigenetic state of ovarian and endometrial tumors.

December 9, 2021
Breast cancer classified into 12 unique biological groups
Researchers at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, led by Distinguished Professor of Genetics Charles Perou, PhD, have taken a major step forward in melding two key methods for studying breast cancer: one by genetic analysis and the second by looking at the architecture of cells, or their pathology.

November 15, 2021
Department of Genetics Publications October 31st – November 13th 2021
Department of Genetics faculty, postdocs, students and collaborators published 12 papers during October 31st – November 13th 2021. A multi-omic single-cell landscape of human gynecologic malignancies. Regner MJ, Wisniewska K, Garcia-Recio S, Thennavan A, Mendez-Giraldez R, Malladi VS, Hawkins G, Parker JS, Perou CM, Bae-Jump VL, Franco HL. Mol Cell. 2021 Nov 1:S1097-2765(21)00842-X. doi: …