Dr. Clayton Yates is an internationally recognized expert in prostate cancer health disparities research, cell biology, molecular biology, and molecular pathology. Dr. Yates earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Pathology in 2005 as well as certificate of training in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative medicine from the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine. He then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University School of Medicine Department of Urology. After completing his post-doctoral training in 2007, Dr. Yates accepted a tenure track assistant professor position at Tuskegee University in the Department of Biology and Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Yates was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and full professor in 2014. Dr. Clayton Yates currents holds appoints in the Center for Cancer Research, and a joint appointment Materials Science and Engineering at Tuskegee University. He is also adjunct faculty at Clark Atlanta University Department of Biology and Department of Pathology at University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. Yates has an interest prostate and breast cancer research, particularly in African Americans. Dr. Yates has established several cell lines based models derived from African American patients that are used by many labs today to study molecular events the lead prostate cancer development and metastasis. Additionally, Dr. Yates has identified multiple biomarkers for the prediction of aggressive cancers in African Americans with prostate or breast cancer, and this has led to the development of a novel therapeutic for African American breast, prostate, and pancreatic patients that is posed to enter clinical trials in 2018. Dr. Yates has spoken at over 35 universities and conferences including the First NCI Health Disparities Conference and more recently he was invited to deliver the AACR Distinguished Lecture at Howard University on April 5, 2017, in Health Disparities.
Dr. Yates has also received numerous research honors and awards, authored over 65 peer-reviewed publications, participated in numerous Department of Defense and NIH study section panels, and received numerous DOD and R level NIH grants in prostate and breast cancer health disparities, totaling over 25 million dollars in extramural funding. Dr. Yates is currently the research director for the Transatlantic Prostate Cancer Consortium, which is focused on understanding the tumor biology in native African men in Nigeria and developing novel clinical interventions for this population. Dr. Yates is currently the principle investigator (PI) of the Research Centers at Minority Institutions (RCMI), site PI of CTSA (jointly with UAB-hub institution), and co-PI of U54 Cancer Health Disparities with Morehouse School of Medicinal and University of Alabama at Birmingham.