Robert Clarke

Robert Clarke is a Northern Irish oncology researcher and academic administrator. He is the executive director of The Hormel Institute, a professor of biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at the University of Minnesota, and an adjunct professor of oncology at Georgetown University. With his work focused in breast cancer research, Clarke studies how hormones (endogenous and exogenous) and related factors affect breast cancer. He has authored over 340 publications, and has 5 patents awarded. His research primarily focuses on determining an individual patient’s prognosis and the likelihood that they will respond to specific systemic therapies. His laboratory also studies drug resistance and the role of cell-cell communication in affecting dormancy and responsiveness to endocrine therapies breast cancers that express the estrogen receptor. Clarke is an elected Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Royal Society of Biology. He is a Senior Editor for the journal Cancer Research. Education Clarke studied at the University of Ulster, and received his bachelor's degree in biological sciences in 1980. He then enrolled at Queen’s University of Belfast, and earned a M.Sc. in 1982, a Ph.D. in 1986, and a D.Sc. in 1999 (each in biochemistry). He completed his postdoctoral training at the Medical Breast Section of the National Cancer Institute in 1988.