Dr. Veronique Baron obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Nice-Sofia Antipolis of Life Sciences (France), working on the Insulin Receptor signaling, diabetes and insulin-resistance. She later obtained a French mentoring degree (HDR) at the Faculty of Medicine in Nice-Sofia Antipolis. Dr. Baron has mentored nine students for the completion of a Master's or Ph.D. and has provided laboratory training to many more undergraduate students. She has been the recipient of several research awards and fellowships. Dr. Baron earned a position as a staff scientist at the French research institute INSERM in 1992. She became an assistant professor at The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in 2005, and joined the Vaccine Research Institute of San Diego in 2009. Her laboratory is currently investigating the function of transcription factor Egr-1 in cancer. She has contributed to studies that have identified tumor suppressors as targets of Egr-1 regulation. Her publication in Oncogene in 2003 was the second evidence in the literature that Egr-1 acts as an oncogene in prostate cancer, challenging the paradigm that this transcription factor is strictly a tumor suppressor. Dr. Baron became a part of the Vaccine Research Institute of San Diego in 2009.

Cell proliferation in cancer is triggered by genetic alterations that activate oncogenes or inactivate tumor suppressors. Our laboratory currently focuses its efforts on the study of Egr-1 (Early Growth Response-1), a transcription factor that regulates genes implicated in the growth and survival of cancer cells and that acts as an oncogene or as a tumor suppressor depending on the circumstances.