DCEG News Updates
The latest news and research findings from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.
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Testing for IBMFS Important for Treatment Decisions in Severe Aplastic Anemia
Individuals who receive hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) for treatment of severe aplastic anemia (SAA) can benefit from genetic testing prior to treatment initiation to determine if they have an unrecognized inherited bone marrow failure syndrome.
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Anil Chaturvedi Appointed DCEG Senior Advisor for Faculty Development
In this role, Dr. Chaturvedi will focus on implementing the recommendations of the Recruitment and Retention Task Force, which he co-chaired with Dr. Jackie Lavigne. He will work closely with the Office of Education, Associate Directors, Branch Chiefs, and the Promotion and Tenure Review Panel to enhance scientific and career development of investigators and staff and foster a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible work culture.
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Interferon Treatment May Improve COVID-19 Outcomes in People with Certain Genetic Factors
Drs. Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Oscar Florez-Vargas, and Rouf Banday in the Laboratory of Translational Genomics investigated the role of OAS1 in COVID-19 severity in patients of European and African ancestries. This finding contributes to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of COVID-19 disease severity and may inform treatment options for COVID-19.
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Summer 2022 Fellow Awards
During the early summer of 2022, many fellows in DCEG were recognized for their outstanding research efforts. Dr. Cameron Haas received the Intramural AIDS Research Fellowship and Drs. Brittany Lord and Wayne Lawrence received the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program 2022 Merit Award. Several postdoctoral fellows received the Fellows Award for Research Excellence.
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Advancing RASopathies Research: A Conversation with Drs. Gina Ney and Douglas Stewart
The lead investigators of the RASopathies study, Douglas Stewart, M.D., senior investigator, and Gina Ney, M.D., Ph.D., staff clinician in the Clinical Genetics Branch, discuss the goals of the study and reflect upon its inaugural year.
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Bringing the Pieces Together: CCR-DCEG FLEX Awards
To capitalize on the complementary research approaches of the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) and DCEG, the CCR-DCEG FLEX award was established in 2015 to fund collaborative projects. Seven years later, Drs. Constanza Camargo, Charles Rabkin, Eric Engels, Neelam Giri, and Laufey Amundadottir, discuss how their projects came about and their progress toward understanding the causes of cancer and the means of prevention.
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Validation of a Low-cost, Rapid HPV DNA Genotyping Test for Cervical Cancer Prevention
A key deliverable of the Cancer Moonshot initiative to Accelerate Cervical Cancer Control is a rapid, mobile, simple, and affordable HPV DNA typing assay for risk-based screening and management in resource-limited settings where routine screening is logistically and cost prohibitive. Drs. Kanan Desai, Mark Schiffman, Silvia de Sanjose, and colleagues in the Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Clinical Genetics Branch, in cooperation with Atila Biosystems scientists, guided the redesign of an existing test for this purpose.
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Lesley Chapman Hannah and Brittany Lord Receive Eddie Méndez Scholar Award
Lesley Chapman Hannah, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow and iCURE scholar in the Clinical Genetics Branch, and Brittany Lord, Ph.D., M.S., M.P.H., Cancer Prevention Fellow in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch, have been selected as members of the fourth cohort of Eddie Méndez awardees by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The award recognizes outstanding postdoctoral fellows from backgrounds that are underrepresented in science.
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Radioactive Iodine Treatment for Thyroid Cancer Associated with Increased Risk of Second Cancers
Elisa Pasqual, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues found that RAI therapy for thyroid cancer among people younger than 45 was associated with increased risk of solid cancer and leukemia. The strength of this study lies in its size and length of follow up.
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2022 Fellows’ Symposium Focuses on Health Disparities and Environmental Justice
In April 2022, DCEG fellows gathered virtually for the 14th Annual DCEG Fellows Symposium. The theme was “Closing the Gap on Health Disparities and Promoting Environmental Justice: From innovative research to action.”
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Two Studies on Disinfection Byproducts in Drinking Water and Cancer Risk
Two studies from the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, led by Drs. Laura Beane Freeman and Rena Jones, respectively, investigated the relationship between disinfection byproducts in drinking water and genetic factors for risk for bladder cancer and hormonal factors and risk for endometrial cancer.
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Marianne Henderson Receives 2022 ISBER Pioneer’s Award
Marianne K. Henderson, M.S., CPC, Senior Advisor for Division Resources received the 2022 Pioneer’s Award from the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER). She was recognized for providing outstanding leadership to the founding, support, and incorporation of ISBER as an international biobanking society, and for playing a critical role in developing and executing ISBER’s vision and mission.
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2022 Intramural Research Awards
DCEG Intramural Research Awards are competitive funding opportunities designed to foster creative, high-impact research by fellows and tenure-track investigators.
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Amy Berrington Appointed Vice Chair of the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
In April 2022, Dr. Berrington was appointed as the Vice-Chair of the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board.
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Federal Cervical Cancer Collaborative for Safety-net Settings of Care
DCEG has partnered with the Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women’s Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies and offices to bring cervical cancer prevention and management guidelines into safety-net settings of care, an offshoot of the Cancer Moonshot.
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2022 NIH Postbac Poster Day Presentations
Postbaccalaureate fellows in DCEG presented their research at the virtual 2022 NIH Postbac Poster Day, sponsored by the NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education.
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2022 NCI Staff Scientist/Staff Clinician Retreat
In April 2022, staff scientists and staff clinicians from DCEG, the NCI Center for Cancer Research, and Frederick National Laboratory, gathered virtually for their 18th annual scientific retreat on “Fostering innovation in cancer research, path from discovery to therapy.”
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Cancer Death Rates Among Black People Declined Over Time, but Remain Higher than Other Racial and Ethnic Groups
Wayne Lawrence, Dr.Ph.H., postdoctoral fellow in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch, and Meredith Shiels, Ph.D., senior investigator in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch report that from 1999 to 2019, rates of cancer deaths declined steadily among Black people in the United States. Nevertheless, in 2019, Black people still had considerably higher rates of cancer death than people in other racial and ethnic groups.
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HPV 16 Variants Associated with Prognosis for Oropharyngeal Cancer
Human papillomavirus-driven oropharyngeal cancer (HPV-OPC), a type of throat cancer caused by oral HPV infection, is rapidly increasing in incidence in the US. This is the first study to sequence the HPV genome in a large number of HPV-OPC, and links HPV16 genetic variants to poorer patient survival. Median survival was 4 years for OPC patients with an HPV infection with one or more of eight specific viral genetic variants compared to 19 years for patients with infections without these variants.
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Wendy Wong Joins DCEG as a Senior Bioinformatician
Dr. Wong will develop, implement, and provide key bioinformatics leadership, expertise, and support to the Division, and serve as the head for a newly established DCEG Bioinformatics Virtual Core (BVC).