Our Team
Dr. Alexander Borowsky, MD
Dr. Alexander “Sandy” Borowsky
Dr. Borowsky is a board certified surgical pathologist with expertise in cancer diagnostics. He is a translational scientist with expertise in assay development and interpretation in the clinical setting, including experience with radiologic- pathologic image registration and comparative analysis, immunohistochemistry, FISH, and tissue and fixative preparation for conventional and innovative molecular analysis. Dr. Borowsky’s lab has pioneered techniques for tumor transplantation and tumor immunology experiments and generated novel genetically engineered mouse cancer models of mammary and prostate cancer. Specific areas of interest in the laboratory include pre- cancer progression and cancer stem cell origins, cancer promoting microenvironments and tumor immunology, and regulation of progression and reversion. The lab has a long track record of experimental pathology including interpretation of phenotypes, developmental and cancer, and interpretation of novel immunohistochemical studies, functional imaging technology, image analysis, and data informatics. In addition, Dr. Borowsky’s research interests extend to the development of novel in vivo imaging modalities, and use of these in preclinical and clinical trials. He directs the Center for Genomic Pathology at the Center for Comparative Medicine at UC Davis, is the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center UC-wide Athena Breast Health Program site-PI and Program Leader of the Pathology workgroup, and leads the Diagnosis and Treatment Clinical Care and Research Team. Dr. Borowsky is the Director of the Pathology Working Group in the NCI (MCL) Molecular and Cellular Characterization of Screen Detected Cancers Consortium.
Dr. Robert Cardiff, MD, PhD
Dr. Robert Cardiff
Dr. Cardiff is an educator, pathologist and scientist who began his professional career as an intern at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, NY, from 1962 to 1963. Prior to embarking on his career, Dr. Cardiff graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Entomology and Parasitology from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1962, he earned a Doctor of Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco. He completed a residency in Anatomic Pathology at the University of Oregon Health Sciences in Portland, OR and was board certified in 1969. He became a research fellow of the National Institutes of Health at the University of California, Berkeley, completing a Ph.D. in Zoology in 1968. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1968 to 1970 at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He began is academic career in 1970 with his appointment as an Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine. He retired as a Distinguished Professor of Pathology in 2005. During his career Dr. Cardiff was a devoted and innovative educator. He developed a Biology of Cancer course for undergraduates and a History and Philosophy of Science seminar series for graduate students. Amongst his other accomplishments, he introduced problem-based learning into the medical school curriculum. He was awarded Outstanding Basic Science Teacher Awards from medical school classes of 1984 and 1989. UC Davis recognized him as the Outstanding Teacher of 1985. In 1991, he was recognized for his contributions to mentoring undergraduate interns at the UCD Medical Center with the Affirmative Action Award, and two years later, with a similar award from the UC Davis campus. In 1996 he was the founding director of the Medical Informatics Graduate Group. He also became the founder and Medical Director for the UC Davis Medical Center for Medical Informatics. The School of Medicine recognized his contribution with the development of the Robert D. Cardiff Chair of Informatics Research. In 2006, he became the Founding Director of the Center for Genomic Pathology (CGP), a not-for-profit 501(c) devoted to training pathologists and pathology assistants in Comparative Murine and Human Histology, Anatomy and Pathology. Their online courses were specifically designed for those interested in genetically modified mouse models of human disease. Dr. Cardiff also recruited an international faculty of concerned scholars, the Academy of Genomic Pathology. His CGP online (internet) courses in the Pathobiology of the Mouse were named The Outstanding Distance Learning Courses of 2010 and 2011 by the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. As a scientific researcher, Dr. Cardiff held NCI and ACS grants for most of his career. He has over 317 peer-reviewed papers and, including book chapters, 360 publications. Starting with his thesis work, Dr. Cardiff has specialized in mouse models of mammary cancer but has published broadly in cancer research, informatics, education, and administration. In 1985, Dr. Cardiff was presented with the Triton Research Award from Triton Biosciences, Inc. He was the recipient of the Sadusk Award from the Peralta Cancer Institute in 1986 and the UCD School of Medicine award for Outstanding Research. Since 1990, he has used the internet to provide pathology services for investigators using genetically modified mice to study human disease. He has over 1,100 co-authors from 28 countries. In 2018 he was recognized for his continued contributions to science as The UC Davis 2018 Distinguished Emeritus.
Dr. Denise Imai-Leonard, DVM, PhD, DACVP
Dr. Denise Imai-Leonard
Dr. Denise M. Imai-Leonard DVM, PhD, DACVP is the Director of the Comparative Pathology Laboratory (CPL) and Health Sciences Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, at the School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis. She manages a high-throughput laboratory animal diagnostic facility that provides health surveillance, clinical diagnostics and pre-clinical research pathology support for the University of California system and private industry clients. As a comparative pathologist, she has over 13 years of experience and her specific interests are in geropathology and high-throughput phenotyping of genetically engineered mice.