Sophia Ran
Dr. Sophia Ran received her Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry in 1989 from the Weizmann Institute in Israel. She completed postgraduate training in the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, and the Hospital for Sick Children, Canada. After working three years in a pharmaceutical company on developing anti-cancer drugs, she moved to the Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, to develop new agents targeting tumor vessels. In 2003, she moved to Southern Illinois University where she is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology. Her major research interests are tumor vessels and metastasis. She is an author of 23 US and 69 international patents as well as 43 scientific papers related mainly to tumor angiogenesis, lymphangiogenesis, anti-cancer therapies and metastasis. Dr. Ran is a member of Research Advisory Board of American Cancer Society in the Illinois Division and an associate editor of Frontiers in Vascular Physiology, ISRN Oncology and OJPathology. She served as a grant reviewer for NIH, ACS, the US Army, the Cancer Research Council in England, the Italian Ministry of Health, the Swiss Cancer League and the Swiss National Foundation.