Stella Koutros Awarded Scientific Tenure by the NIH
, by Jennifer K. Loukissas, M.P.P.
Stella Koutros, Ph.D., M.P.H.
In May, Stella Koutros, Ph.D., M.P.H., was awarded scientific tenure by the National Institutes of Health and promoted to senior investigator in the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch (OEEB). Dr. Koutros is an internationally recognized expert in the design and conduct of epidemiologic investigations to evaluate workplace exposures as risk factors for cancer and to studies clarifying the etiology of bladder cancer, a disease substantially influenced by occupational, environmental, and genetic factors. Across multiple studies of highly-exposed individuals, she has initiated the collection of biospecimens tissues for the conduct of molecular and genomic analysisgenetic and molecular pathology studies.
Dr. Koutros has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the risks associated with high levels of exposure to several important chemicals, including pesticides, acrylonitrile, and diesel exhaust. She employs state-of-the-art exposure assessment methods and molecular studies within highly exposed populations to identify the etiology and clarify the biological mechanisms underlying chemical-induced carcinogenesis.
As the principal investigator for two prominent occupational cohorts, the NCI Acrylonitrile Cohort and the Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study II (DEMS II), Dr. Koutros modernized data collection to enable longer-term follow-up, consider additional cancer types, and—within DEMS II—expand biospecimen collection to facilitate molecular studies and genomic analysis of tumors. Her investigations of diesel exhaust have been pivotal, clarifying cancer risks for sites other than lung (non-Hodgkin lymphoma, bladder) as well as excess death from cardiovascular disease among workers with the highest exposures.
In the Acrylonitrile Cohort, the largest study of its kind, she showed that workers with the highest cumulative exposure experienced excess lung cancer. An additional 21 years of mortality data showed an exposure-response relationship for death from bladder cancer and non-malignant respiratory disease.
For bladder cancer, molecular studies of tumors are increasingly common but often lack detailed risk factor information. Dr. Koutros’s research uniquely integrates comprehensive epidemiologic data with advanced molecular characterization of bladder tumors to uncover mechanistic pathways of bladder carcinogenesis. Her pioneering work revealed compelling links between occupational exposures, such as diesel exhaust in DEMS II and metalworking fluids among participants in the New England Bladder Cancer Study, and distinct tumor mutational features. These discoveries highlight key pathways through which these exposures may influence bladder cancer risk. Additionally, her studies explore the interplay between genetic susceptibility and somatic tumor alternations, uncovering important differences in tumor biology by sex and exposure history. Her research stands out as among the first to incorporate detailed exposure data into molecular analyses, setting a benchmark for future integrative studies.
Dr. Koutros received her M.P.H. and Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. In 2008, upon completion of her doctorate, she became a fellow in OEEB and was appointed to the position of tenure-track investigator in 2015.