My long-term career goal is to perform scientific research and maintain an active clinical practice as an academic surgeon-scientist. I intend to specialize in surgical oncology and breast cancer cellular biology as a physician and translational science researcher, respectively. As a PI, my desire is to delineate the oncogenic activity of proteins that could be utilized as biomarkers of diagnosis and progression of disease. I have a strong interest in studying how these discoveries will lead to the identification of potential personalized therapeutic targets for breast cancer. My PhD thesis focused in the cell biology and biochemistry of steroid hormone receptors (e.g. glucocorticoid receptor) in breast cancer. Specifically, using in vitro and in vivo techniques we identified that phosphorylation of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is essential for its actions in breast cancer. Importantly, we utilized RNA-Seq to understand the impact of phosphorylation of GR on the transcriptome of breast cancer cells. In order to understand the potential implications of our research in patient-centered care, we employed informational statistical analyses by data mining public databases such as METABRIC and The Cancer Genome Atlas to further delineate the role of GR in patients with breast cancer. Having recently finished my PhD component of the MD/PhD training, I am in a pivotal point in my career. In my next training steps, I want to gain further knowledge in the fields of computational biology and biostatistics (i.e. personalized medicine). My aim is to use this knowledge to better identify treatments and diagnostic tools for patients, in particular patients that are part of underserved communities in healthcare. Ultimately, my goal is to better interrelate the fields of cell biology with personalized medicine/bioinformatics. At the same time, I am committed to gain strong medical and surgical skills in order to identify the scientific enigmas that originate from medical interactions with patients.