Brittany Johnson

I am a third year DPhil student from Birmingham, Alabama. Within NDORMS, I am a part of the Edwards group, co-supervised by Claire Edwards, James Edwards, and Srinivasa Rao Rao. I am interested in the role of tumor location within the bone microenvironment and the implications of endocrine signaling gradients on tumor behavior.

I completed my Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Alabama in 2018 and began medical school at the University of Alabama Birmingham to pursue a Doctor of Medicine that same year. In 2019, I was granted funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to spend the summer at the University of Oxford as a research student in NDORMS. My current interest in musculoskeletal cancers and endocrine signaling within bone first began during my summer spent at NDORMS. I will complete my MD program following completion of my DPhil and plan to pursue a career in anesthesiology following graduation. I hope to pursue medical residency training at an academic medical center with a specific focus on developing physician-scientists. My ultimate goal is to undertake clinically relevant research throughout my medical career and remain involved in academia through research and teaching.

My past areas of research include cellular immunology and biomarkers of infection, endocrine signaling in the context of cancer, patient outcomes in perioperative medicine, and medical bioethics. In collaboration with my supervisors, this research has been published in several medical journals and presented at conferences in the United States and abroad. I am currently studying the importance of metastatic prostate tumor location within bone as well as examining the connection between specific genes relevant to the bone microenvironment and clinical outcomes of late-stage prostate cancer patients.