DCEG Welcomes First Cancer Research Transatlantic Development and Skills Enhancement Awardee
, by Elise Tookmanian, Ph.D.
Fiona Malcomson, Ph.D., M.Res., B.Sc. (Hons), has joined DCEG as part of the first cohort of the Cancer Research Transatlantic Development and Skills Enhancement (DSE) Award, funded through a partnership between the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health Research and Medical Research Council. The award supports early to mid-career researchers from the UK who are looking to gain training, develop skills and experience, and establish international collaborations with NCI researchers. It will support a transition to independence in cancer research. Awardees spend six to twelve months with an intramural research group at the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Malcomson will be spending seven months in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch (MEB), split across summer 2024 and spring 2025, under the mentorship of Erikka Loftfield, Ph.D., M.P.H., investigator in MEB. She will be developing her skills in cancer epidemiology by investigating associations between adhering to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)/American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) Cancer Prevention Recommendations and cancer incidence. In addition, she aims to identify a metabolic signature of adherence and explore whether this signature is associated with the risk of cancers, using data from the PLCO and Interactive Diet and Activity Tracking in AARP (IDATA) studies.
Dr. Malcomson is a lecturer in human nutrition within the Human Nutrition & Exercise Research Centre and Centre for Cancer in the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University, UK, where she earned her Ph.D. in molecular nutrition and cancer in 2015. Her Ph.D. investigated the effects of a dietary fiber intervention on biomarkers of gastrointestinal health and colorectal cancer risk in healthy individuals. More recently, during her role as senior research associate and co-investigator on a WCRF-funded project, Dr. Malcomson developed her cancer epidemiological skills investigating associations between adherence to the 2018 WCRF/AICR Cancer Prevention Recommendations and cancer incidence and survival in the UK Biobank.
Dr. Malcomson has been awarded the British Nutrition Foundation’s Drummond Early Career Scientist Award, Rank Prize Funds Research Visionary Award, and The Nutrition Society Julie Wallace Award, and completed the Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer Workshop in 2021.