Steve Moore Appointed Principal Investigator of PLCO Cohort Study
, by Jennifer K. Loukissas, M.P.P.
Steven C. Moore, Ph.D., M.P.H., senior investigator in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch (MEB), has been appointed as DCEG’s principal investigator for the Prostate, Lung, Colon, and Ovary (PLCO) Cohort Study. Dr. Moore is an internationally recognized expert on physical activity, obesity, and diet as they relate to human carcinogenesis and health. He explores these associations through analyses of large-scale consortium datasets and high-throughput molecular epidemiology studies.
Dr. Moore takes over from Dr. Neal Freedman, formerly of MEB. Dr. Freedman led the PLCO team for nine years, and with the help of Wen-Yi Huang, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., was instrumental in completing the genotyping of the PLCO cohort, further enhancing the utility of this national resource. Dr. Freedman now serves as chief of the Tobacco Control Research Branch (TCRB) in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, NCI.
PLCO started as a large, population-based randomized trial designed and sponsored by the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention and DCEG to determine the effects of screening on cancer-related mortality and secondary endpoints in men and women aged 55 to 74.
In addition, PLCO has collected health information and biospecimens (multiple blood draws and some tissue samples) from participants to answer many other questions about cancer and other chronic diseases. The screening component of the trial was completed in 2006, and participants remain under follow-up for cancer occurrence and mortality. Such follow-up strengthens PLCO as a prized resource for molecular epidemiologic research and provides long-term data on the trial’s primary endpoints.