Alissa Weaver's Biography

Alissa Weaver, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. Alissa Weaver is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She also directs the Vanderbilt Program for Extracellular Vesicle Research. The overall goal of her research is to understand the function of extracellular vesicles and how they drive tumor metastasis. The laboratory has a particular focus on how secretion of exosome-type extracellular vesicles promote cancer cell invasion and motility and alter the tumor microenvironment. The laboratory is also studying fundamental questions in the extracellular vesicle (EV) field, including how RNA and protein cargoes are sorted into EVs, how secretion of exosomes is controlled, the role of specific EV cargoes in driving tumor behavior, and the impact of EVs on functions of recipient cells across a variety of biological contexts. You can access the Weaver Lab home page by going to https://my.vanderbilt.edu/alissaweaver/.