About

Miroslava Brooks is an Assistant Professor at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, having joined the faculty in January 2023. She is a practicing architect and a founding partner of FORMA, a design-driven architecture practice based in New York City and Los Angeles. Brooks is interested in what constitutes a disciplinary core of architecture today, with her design interests revolving around formal, organizational, and material strategies that merge art, technology, and ecology to create closer relationships between buildings and their surrounding environment. She has an extensive teaching background, having taught at Yale University School of Architecture since 2014, where she became the youngest faculty member in the school’s history to receive the Professor King-Lui Wu Teaching Award. She has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design since 2016 and at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture as the Kwallek Endowed Chair Visiting Professor. Brooks co-founded FORMA in 2018 with Daniel Markiewicz, working across various scales and typologies, including residential projects and character-driven civic spaces. Her work has received multiple awards, such as the Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design Award for Pink Thermal Baths, the Global Design News Best Future House Award for Miami House, and recognition in international competitions for projects like Atlantic Beach Boardwalk and Denver House.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Cancer research
• Biology
• Internal medicine
• Pharmacology

Selected publications

• Endothelial-Derived Gene-1

  2015-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Endothelial-Derived Gene-1

  2015-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Endothelial Derived Gene-1

  2011-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Contributors

  The Breast · 2009-01-01

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Angiogenesis in Breast Cancer

  The Breast · 2009-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Breast Cancer Screening and Biomarkers

  Methods in molecular biology · 2008-12-24 · 68 citations

  review1st authorCorresponding

  Annual screening mammograms have been shown to be cost-effective and are credited for the decline in mortality of breast cancer. New technologies including breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may further improve early breast cancer detection in asymptomatic women. Serum tumor markers such as CA 15-3, carcinoembyonic antigen (CEA), and CA 27-29 are ordered in the clinic mainly for disease surveillance, and not useful for detection of localized cancer. This review will discuss blood-based markers and breast-based markers, such as nipple/ductal fluid, with an emphasis on biomarkers for early detection of breast cancer. In the future, it is likely that a combination approach to simultaneously measure multiple markers would be most successful in detecting early breast cancer. Ideally, such a biomarker panel should be able to detect breast cancer in asymptomatic patients, even in the setting of normal mammogram and physical examination results.

  PublisherDOI

• Salivary protein factors are elevated in breast cancer patients

  Molecular Medicine Reports · 2008-05-01 · 83 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  While saliva is a source of easily accessible bodily fluids, there has been little effort to study its value in cancer diagnosis. We hypothesized that certain proteins would be elevated in the saliva of patients with breast cancer. Our study included 49 healthy individuals and 49 breast cancer patients. The levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in the saliva were measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We observed that salivary fluid protein levels were significantly elevated in cancer patients as follows: i) VEGF, 3.7±1.6 in cancer versus 2.1±1.2 ng/ml in control (p<0.0001); ii) EGF, 3.7±1.7 versus 2.1±1.3 ng/ml (p<0.0001); and iii) CEA, 83±31 versus 66.1±27.1 ng/ml (p=0.0106). The areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) were 80, 77 and 65%, respectively. The best prediction was from the combination of salivary VEGF and EGF with a sensitivity of 83%, specificity of 74% and AUC of 84%. We conclude that saliva is a novel avenue for tumor marker research and deserves further studies. Saliva may potentially be useful in supplementing current methods of breast cancer detection.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Endothelial Derived Gene-1

  2008-10-15

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Targeted inhibition of EG-1 blocks breast tumor growth

  Cancer Biology & Therapy · 2007-06-01 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  EG-1 is a gene product that is significantly elevated in human breast cancer tissues. Previously, we have shown that EG-1 overexpression stimulates cellular proliferation both in vitro and in vivo. Here, we ask whether this molecule can be targeted for experimental therapeutic purpose. siRNA lentivirus and polyclonal antibodies were designed to suppress EG-1 expression. These agents were then used in cell culture proliferation assays and breast tumor xenograft models. Serum and urine from breast cancer patients were also analyzed for the presence of EG-1 peptide. We report here for the first time that endogenous EG-1 can be targeted to inhibit breast tumor growth. This inhibition, whether delivered via siRNA lentivirus or polyclonal antibody, resulted in decreased cellular proliferation in culture and smaller xenografts in mice. The effects were shown in both ER (estrogen receptor)-positive human breast cancer MCF-7 cells, as well as in ER-negative MDA-MB-231 cells. Furthermore, we detected soluble EG-1 in serum and urine of breast cancer patients. These observations demonstrate that EG-1 is relevant to human breast cancer, and is a molecular target worthy of translational efforts into effective breast cancer therapy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nitroxyl inhibits breast tumor growth and angiogenesis

  International Journal of Cancer · 2007-12-12 · 96 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Nitroxyl (HNO) can inhibit the glycolytic enzyme glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). Because of the importance of glycolysis in many malignant cells, we thus propose that HNO can adversely affect tumor growth. This hypothesis was tested using in vitro and in vivo models of breast cancer. We report here for the first time that HNO suppresses the proliferation of both estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and ER-negative human breast cancer cell lines, in a dose dependent manner. Mice treated with HNO either injected into the tumor itself or via the intraperitoneal approach had smaller xenograft tumor size. In addition to significantly decreased blood vessel density in the HNO-treated tumors, we observed lower levels of circulating serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Accordingly, there was a decrease in total HIF-1alpha (hypoxia-inducible factor) protein in HNO-treated tumor cells. Further studies showed inhibition of GAPDH activity in HNO-treated human breast cancer cell lines and in HNO-treated tumor tissue derived from xenografts. One explanation for the multiplicity of actions observed after HNO treatment could be the effect from the initial inhibition of GAPDH, providing a potential therapeutic avenue based upon blocking glycolysis resulting in decreased HIF-1alpha, thus leading to angiogenesis inhibition. Therefore, HNO appears to act via mechanism(s) different from those of existing breast cancer drugs, making it a potential candidate to overcome known and emerging drug resistance pathways.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant P50AT000151

  NIH · $14.5M · 2005

Frequent coauthors

• Maryam Sartippour

  California Department of Public Health

  18 shared

• David Heber

  9 shared

• Andrew J. Norris

  7 shared

• Ming Lu

  6 shared

• Zuo‐Feng Zhang

  UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

  6 shared

• Rosalio Rubio

  Research Institute Hospital 12 de Octubre

  4 shared

• Liping Zhang

  Sun Yat-sen University

  4 shared

• Perrin H. Beatty

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• Gertraud A. Wood Fellowship
• William Wirt Winchester Travelling Fellowship
• Best of Design, Unbuilt Cultural Project category (Pink Ther…
• Second prize/co-finalist in an international design competit…
• Winner of Architectural Record’s 2022 RECORD Kitchen and Bat…