David J. Hunter
Emeritus Faculty

David J. Hunter

Vincent L. Gregory Professor of Cancer Prevention, Emeritus

Epidemiology

dhunter@hsph.harvard.edu

Other Positions

Professor of Medicine, Emeritus

Emeritus

Harvard Medical School


Overview

David Hunter's principal research interests are the etiology of cancer, particularly breast, ovarian, prostate and skin cancer. He was an investigator on the Nurses' Health Study, a long-running cohort of 121,000 US women, and was project director for the Nurses' Health Study II, a newer cohort of 116,000 women. He analyzes inherited susceptibility to cancer and other chronic diseases using genetic techniques and studying molecular markers of environmental exposures. Dr. Hunter supervised laboratories at the Harvard School of Public Health in which gene sequence information from these samples is obtained. He was Co-Chair of the NCI Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium and co-director of the NCI Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS) Special Initiative. He collaborated with investigators at the School and in Tanzania to understand the relationship of nutritional status to progression of HIV disease and perinatal transmission. Professor Hunter was the Director of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention from 1997-2003, and was Founding Director of the Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology (now Program in Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics), Harvard School of Public Health. Hunter was Acting Dean of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in 2015-2016 and before that Dean for Academic Affairs at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 2009-2015.

In 2017, Hunter moved to the University of Oxford as the Richard Doll Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine, and as a Governing Board Fellow of Green Templeton College. He directs a Unit focused on translating disease risk information into population health and clinical practice. He is Chief Science Advisor to Our Future Health, a major cohort initiative of the UK Government. In 2021 he was elected as a Fellow by distinction of the UK Faculty of Public Health, and elected as a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences.

MB, BS, 1982
University of Sydney Medical School

MPH, 1985
Harvard School of Public Health

ScD, 1988
Harvard School of Public Health


Bibliography

Characterizing prostate cancer risk through multi-ancestry genome-wide discovery of 187 novel risk variants.

Wang A, Shen J, Rodriguez AA, Saunders EJ, Chen F, Janivara R, Darst BF, Sheng X, Xu Y, Chou AJ, Benlloch S, Dadaev T, Brook MN, Plym A, Sahimi A, Hoffman TJ, Takahashi A, Matsuda K, Momozawa Y, Fujita M, Laisk T, Figuerêdo J, Muir K, Ito S, Liu X, Uchio Y, Kubo M, Kamatani Y, Lophatananon A, Wan P, Andrews C, Lori A, Choudhury PP, Schleutker J, Tammela TLJ, Sipeky C, Auvinen A, Giles GG, Southey MC, MacInnis RJ, Cybulski C, Wokolorczyk D, Lubinski J, Rentsch CT, Cho K, Mcmahon BH, Neal DE, Donovan JL, Hamdy FC, Martin RM, Nordestgaard BG, Nielsen SF, Weischer M, Bojesen SE, Røder A, Stroomberg HV, Batra J, Chambers S, Horvath L, Clements JA, Tilly W, Risbridger GP, Gronberg H, Aly M, Szulkin R, Eklund M, Nordstrom T, Pashayan N, Dunning AM, Ghoussaini M, Travis RC, Key TJ, Riboli E, Park JY, Sellers TA, Lin HY, Albanes D, Weinstein S, Cook MB, Mucci LA, Giovannucci E, Lindstrom S, Kraft P, Hunter DJ, Penney KL, Turman C, Tangen CM, Goodman PJ, Thompson IM, Hamilton RJ, Fleshner NE, Finelli A, Parent MÉ, Stanford JL, Ostrander EA, Koutros S, Beane Freeman LE, Stampfer M, Wolk A, Håkansson N, Andriole GL, Hoover RN, Machiela MJ, Sørensen KD, Borre M, Blot WJ, Zheng W, Yeboah ED, Mensah JE, Lu YJ, Zhang HW, Feng N, Mao X, Wu Y, Zhao SC, Sun Z, Thibodeau SN, McDonnell SK, Schaid DJ, West CML, Barnett G, Maier C, Schnoeller T, Luedeke M, Kibel AS, Drake BF, Cussenot O, Cancel-Tassin G, Menegaux F, Truong T, Koudou YA, John EM, Grindedal EM, Maehle L, Khaw KT, Ingles SA, Stern MC, Vega A, Gómez-Caamaño A, Fachal L, Rosenstein BS, Kerns SL, Ostrer H, Teixeira MR, Paulo P, Brandão A, Watya S, Lubwama A, Bensen JT, Butler EN, Mohler JL, Taylor JA, Kogevinas M, Dierssen-Sotos T, Castaño-Vinyals G, Cannon-Albright L, Teerlink CC, Huff CD, Pilie P, Yu Y, Bohlender RJ, Gu J, Strom SS, Multigner L, Blanchet P, Brureau L, Kaneva R, Slavov C, Mitev V, Leach RJ, Brenner H, Chen X, Holleczek B, Schöttker B, Klein EA, Hsing AW, Kittles RA, Murphy AB, Logothetis CJ, Kim J, Neuhausen SL, Steele L, Ding YC, Isaacs WB, Nemesure B, Hennis AJM, Carpten J, Pandha H, Michael A, De Ruyck K, De Meerleer G, Ost P, Xu J, Razack A, Lim J, Teo SH, Newcomb LF, Lin DW, Fowke JH, Neslund-Dudas CM, Rybicki BA, Gamulin M, Lessel D, Kulis T, Usmani N, Abraham A, Singhal S, Parliament M, Claessens F, Joniau S, Van den Broeck T, Gago-Dominguez M, Castelao JE, Martinez ME, Larkin S, Townsend PA, Aukim-Hastie C, Bush WS, Aldrich MC, Crawford DC, Srivastava S, Cullen J, Petrovics G, Casey G, Wang Y, Tettey Y, Lachance J, Tang W, Biritwum RB, Adjei AA, Tay E, Truelove A, Niwa S, Yamoah K, Govindasami K, Chokkalingam AP, Keaton JM, Hellwege JN, Clark PE, Jalloh M, Gueye SM, Niang L, Ogunbiyi O, Shittu O, Amodu O, Adebiyi AO, Aisuodionoe-Shadrach OI, Ajibola HO, Jamda MA, Oluwole OP, Nwegbu M, Adusei B, Mante S, Darkwa-Abrahams A, Diop H, Gundell SM, Roobol MJ, Jenster G, van Schaik RHN, Hu JJ, Sanderson M, Kachuri L, Varma R, McKean-Cowdin R, Torres M, Preuss MH, Loos RJF, Zawistowski M, Zöllner S, Lu Z, Van Den Eeden SK, Easton DF, Ambs S, Edwards TL, Mägi R, Rebbeck TR, Fritsche L, Chanock SJ, Berndt SI, Wiklund F, Nakagawa H, Witte JS, Gaziano JM, Justice AC, Mancuso N, Terao C, Eeles RA, Kote-Jarai Z, Madduri RK, Conti DV, Haiman CA.

Nat Genet. 2023 Dec. 55(12):2065-2074. PMID: 37945903


News