Dr. Dorraya El-Ashry is Chief Scientific Officer at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), where she oversees the foundation’s global research portfolio, guiding funding strategy and advancing the mission to end breast cancer through innovative science. A cancer biologist with nearly three decades of experience, her work has centered on breast cancer progression, therapy resistance, and metastasis.
Her research has illuminated mechanisms of estrogen receptor (ER) loss in breast tumors and strategies to restore ER to improve responsiveness to anti-estrogen therapies. She has also pioneered studies of the tumor microenvironment, particularly the role of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in driving tumor growth and spread. Her team was among the first to show that CAFs can circulate with tumor cells in patient blood, offering new insight into metastatic disease.
Prior to joining BCRF, Dr. El-Ashry held faculty appointments at the University of Minnesota, University of Miami, University of Michigan, and Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center. She earned her PhD in Experimental Pathology from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and completed postdoctoral training at Georgetown. She has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and is recognized internationally for her leadership in breast cancer research.