Tony Howell - Overview

Our interest is understanding the regulation of cell growth, differentiation and function in the human breast. Over a number of years, we have used human breast tissue and novel human breast model systems to demonstrate that oestradiol (E2) controls proliferation in human breast tissue indirectly via paracrine growth factors, that oestrogen receptor (ER) containing cells are a differentiated, non-proliferative population and that disruption of the strict inverse relationship between ER expression and proliferation occurs at the earliest stages of progression from normal to malignant.

Currently, we are focused on characterising the breast epithelial stem cell and characterising the regulation of its asymmetric division into the phenotypically distinct lineages of the breast epithelium.