Research

Genetic Susceptibility to Cancer and other Chronic Diseases

The completion of the Human Genome Project and databases of population genetic variation presents the major challenge of determining how these genetic variants affect our health. Epidemiologists are responsible for assessing the proportion of specific diseases associated with particular genotypes, and how these genotypes interact with environmental and lifestyle factors in disease causation. Large, population-based cohort studies can be particularly helpful in studying these issues, and we are working with colleagues in the Nurses' Health Studies, Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Physicians' Health Study, to conduct nested cases-control studies of cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other phenotypes.  With collaborators at the National Cancer Institute we have conducted genome-wide association studies of breast cancer and other cancers.  These studies are discovering novel genetic variants associated with risk of these cancers, and multiple other phenotypes that have been collected in these studies.

Cancer Epidemiology in Women                   

We are also studying the causes of cancer, particularly breast, colon, and skin cancer in two large prospective cohorts of U.S. nurses the Nurses' Health Study I and II.

Cancer Consortia

To obtain the large sample sizes necessary, as well as to assess consistency of results across studies, we are members of large collaborative Consortia.  I am 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.