DCEG People in the News

In October, Michael C.R. Alavanja, Dr.P.H., Laura Beane-Freeman, Ph.D., Kenneth P. Cantor, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Mary H. Ward, Ph.D., all of the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch (OEEB), gave presentations at the President’s Cancer Panel meeting on Environmental Factors in Cancer: Agricultural Exposures, held in Indianapolis.

This fall, Blanche P. Alter, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Genetics Branch (CGB), gave talks on inherited bone marrow failure syndromes at Johannesburg General Hospital in South Africa; the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore; Howard University School of Medicine in Washington, DC; Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas; the Twentieth Annual Fanconi Anemia Research Fund Scientific Symposium in Eugene, Oregon; and the Keck Center of the National Academies in Washington, DC.

In October, Dr. Beane-Freeman and Lee E. Moore, Ph.D. (OEEB), gave invited lectures on biomarker and genetic-based research at the Barcelona workshop, Getting Unstuck in Environmental and Occupational Cancer, sponsored by the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology.

Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, D. Phil., Radiation Epidemiology Branch, gave an invited lecture on “Second cancers after radiotherapy for breast cancer in SEER and the UK Million Women Study” at Oxford University in August and at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in November.

In November, Philip E. Castle, Ph.D., M.P.H., Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch (HREB), gave invited talks on “New biomarkers for detection of cervical precancer and cancer,” “Risk assessment of cervical cancer: Practical issues,” and “Self-collection and HPV testing” at the Eurogin 2008 Conference in Nice, France, titled Joining Forces for Cervical Cancer Prevention.

In September, Amanda J. Cross, Ph.D., Nutritional Epidemiology Branch (NEB), spoke on “Meat intake and colorectal cancer: Recent research activities related to carcinogens in meat” at the Gene-environment Interactions for Colorectal Cancer meeting at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

In September, James J. Goedert, M.D., Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch (IIB), gave a talk on “Cancer incidence and risk factors with HIV/AIDS: An update” at the Third Workshop on Complications of HIV and Antiretroviral Treatments in Avignon, France.

In September, Mark H. Greene, M.D. (CGB), spoke on “Familial testicular germ cell tumors in adults: Summary of current genetic and clinical phenotype data” at the 11th International Workshop on Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia in Delphi, Greece. In November, he presented “Update on recent developments in the management of patients with BRCA1/2 mutations” at the 24th Annual Ella T. Grasso Memorial Conference at the Yale School of Medicine.

In October, Wen-Yi Huang, Ph.D., M.S.P.H. (OEEB), cochaired the colorectal cancer session and presented “Ongoing research findings from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian screening trial on etiology of colorectal tumors” at the Eighth International Conference of Anticancer Research in Kos, Greece.

In November, Li Jiao, M.D., Ph.D. (NEB), spoke on “Genes, diet, and risk of pancreatic cancer” at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

In November, Hormuzd A. Katki, Ph.D., Biostatistics Branch (BB), spoke on “Using DNA fingerprints to infer familial relationships within NHANESIII households” at the National Human Genome Research Institute. In December, he gave a talk titled “Introduction to options for design and analysis of studies nested within cohorts” at the Center on Aging and Health at Johns Hopkins University.

In December, Jill Koshiol, Ph.D. (IIB), won a Scholar-in-Training Award from the American Association for Cancer Research at the International Conference on Infection and Cancer: Biology, Therapeutics, and Prevention, held in Hong Kong.

In October, James V. Lacey, Jr., Ph.D. (HREB), spoke on “PTEN as a marker of clinical progression from endometrial hyperplasia to carcinoma” at the Fifth Annual Uterine Cancer Biology Symposium at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

In December, Maria Teresa Landi, M.D., Ph.D., Genetic Epidemiology Branch (GEB), spoke on “MicroRNA expression: Lung cancer” at NIH Clinical Center Grand Rounds.

In October, Mary Lou McMaster, M.D. (GEB), gave a talk on “Precursor conditions in Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia” as part of the invited faculty at the Fifth International Workshop on Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia in Stockholm.

Roberto Minutillo has been selected as the new DCEG Deputy Administrative Resource Center (ARC) manager. He began his career with the ARC as an intern in 1998 and became an administrative officer in 1999. In 2007, he left the ARC to accept a promotion to senior administrative officer at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. He returned to the ARC as a lead administrative officer later that year. He oversaw the administrative operations for the Laboratory of Translational Genomics and the Core Genotyping Facility. With his wealth of experience in all areas of administration, he will continue to be a great resource to the Division.

In October, Lisa Mirabello, Ph.D. (CGB), presented a poster on “Worldwide genetic structure in 37 genes important for telomere maintenance using Human Genome Diversity Project data” at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG).

At the ASHG meeting, Christine Mueller, D.O. (CGB), gave an invited platform talk titled “Detailed characterization of the dyskeratosis congenita phenotypic spectrum.”

In October, Ruth M. Pfeiffer, Ph.D. (BB), gave a talk titled “A colorectal cancer risk prediction tool” at a biostatistics seminar at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

In December, Philip R. Taylor, M.D., Sc.D. (GEB), taught “Chemoprevention of cancer” at the Fundamentals of Clinical Oncology for Public Health Practitioners course at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Ward and Aaron E. Blair, Ph.D., M.P.H. (OEEB), gave invited presentations at the Canadian Cancer Society’s meeting, Exploring the Connection: A State of the Science Conference on Pesticides and Cancer. Dr. Ward spoke on “Non-occupational pesticides and cancer,” and Dr. Blair presented “Occupational pesticide exposures and cancer.”

In November, Stephanie J. Weinstein, Ph.D. (NEB), presented “The Rare Cancers Vitamin D Pooling Project” at the 2008 annual meeting of the NCI Cohort Consortium in Bethesda.

At the Eurogin 2008 Conference in Nice, Nicolas Wentzensen, M.D., Ph.D. (HREB), chaired a session on molecular markers and spoke on “HPV genotype distribution among 1,700 women referred to colposcopy: Implications for disease classification and type attribution.” In October, Dr. Wentzensen gave an invited presentation on “How to improve the accuracy of the gold standard to ascertain presence of cervical cancer precursors?” at the 16th Cochrane Colloquium in Freiburg, Germany.

With mentors Dr. Elizabeth Platz (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Dr. García-Closas, Hannah P. Yang, Sc.M. (HREB), successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on “The association of smoking and common variants in estrogen metabolizing genes with endometrial cancer risk” in the Polish Endometrial Cancer Study and was recommended for a Ph.D. in epidemiology. She will remain in HREB during her postdoctoral training.

In October, Rose Yang, Ph.D., M.P.H. (GEB), gave an invited talk at the workshop Radiation Risk of Breast Cancer: What Can and Should We Do in the Future? sponsored by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Hiroshima.

Kai Yu, Ph.D. (BB), spoke on “Population substructure and control selection in genome-wide association studies” at the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania in September and at the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in October. That same month, he also gave a talk on “A partially linear tree-based regression model for multivariate outcomes” at the Texas A&M University Department of Statistics.