Ruth Kleinerman Awarded Doctoral Degree
, by DCEG Staff
Ruth Kleinerman
In August, Ruth Kleinerman, Assistant Chief and staff scientist in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch, successfully defended her doctoral thesis and was awarded the degree of Ph.D. from the School of Health Sciences, City University London, UK. The title of her dissertation was “Second cancers following treatment for retinoblastoma.”
Dr. Kleinerman, who leads the large follow-up study of late effects in adult survivors of retinoblastoma, joined the NCI Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program in 1979. Over her 30 years of service to the NCI, Dr. Kleinerman has made important contributions to the study of cancer risk among this unique population, including the discovery that hereditary retinoblastoma survivors with an inherited germline RB1 mutation are at higher risk of a second cancer, especially melanoma, compared to hereditary retinoblastoma survivors with a de novo germline RB1 mutation.