Gulzar N. Daya, M.S.

Gulzar N. Daya, M.S. (she/her), joined DCEG as a postbaccalaureate fellow in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch (ITEB) in August 2023. Ms. Daya earned her master’s degree in biomedical informatics (bioinformatics) from The University of Chicago, Illinois, and her B.S. from Loyola University, also in Chicago. While at The University of Chicago, she worked on an R01 clinical trial grant to identify a novel biomarker, IMC- βγ, in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patient populations.

Prior to joining DCEG, Ms. Daya worked in the Center for Cancer Research, NCI, under the mentorship of Dr. Eytan Ruppin. She was part of a team to build, train, and test tools that predicted recurrence of lung adenocarcinoma and lung squamous cell carcinoma in patients with early-stage disease.

In ITEB, she is investigating methylation and expression levels of key genes, CDKN2A and ESR1, in relation to tumor subtypes and the immune cell microenvironment to associate findings with patient etiologic factors and clinical outcomes. In addition, she is investigating methylation data of a rare bone cancer, chordoma, in Chinese populations. Her mentor is Xiaohong Rose Yang, Ph.D., M.P.H., senior investigator.