DCEG News Updates
The latest news and research findings from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.
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Enduring Guidelines: Methods and Dual Stain for Cervical Cancer Screening Triage
Continual improvement of cervical cancer screening and management to include new technologies and approaches requires a flexible approach to guidelines. A description of the Enduring Guidelines effort—methods and principles to ensure swift adoption of changes—and a review and decision on the first new technology to be added to the guidelines—dual stain cytology—were published in the Journal of the Lower Genital Tract Diseases.
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Elizabeth Cahoon and Environmental Radiation Research: Investigator Profile
Elizabeth Cahoon, Earl Stadtman investigator in the Radiation Epidemiology Branch and principal investigator of DCEG Research on Chernobyl, helms an innovative research program that uses the power of epidemiology to investigate how environmental radiation affects human health.
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Update from Jackie Lavigne, DCEG Training Director
Dr. Jackie Lavigne shares news from the Fellowship Program in the Division, including the launch of a new series of videos describing the advantages of training in DCEG.
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2024 CCR-DCEG FLEX Award
Dr. Michael Sargen co-leads the awarded project, which aims to better understand the causes of pediatric melanoma and identify treatment strategies.
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Lesley Chapman Hannah Selected for 2024 Diversity Career Development Program
Lesley Chapman Hannah, postdoctoral fellow in the Clinical Genetics Branch, was selected to join the 2024 cohort of the NCI Diversity Career Development Program.
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In Memoriam: Dr. Dilys Parry
Dr. Parry’s clinical-based medical genetics research focused on mapping and clinical studies of neurofibromatosis 2 and genetic studies of chordoma, a rare bone tumor derived from the notochord, and adult brain tumors. She was deeply committed to mentoring and training fellows in medical genetics and developed and directed the interdisciplinary cancer genetics fellowship program in DCEG.
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Susan Hankinson Delivers Seminar on Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Research
As the 2023 Visiting Scholar, Dr. Hankinson presented her research and engaged with fellows and investigators at several roundtable discussions. As the first visiting scholar since returning to the physical workplace, Dr. Hankinson’s two-day visit was an important reminder of the vitality of collaboration and communion with scientists outside our institution.
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Benefits of Reducing Smoking Quantified in Prospective Cohort Study
Reductions in cigarettes per day and the amount of time smoked were both associated with lower risk of lung cancer among men in the prospective cohort study, Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. Serial questionnaires collected every four months allowed for precision of estimates.
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Carcinogenic Industrial Air Pollution Emitted Inequitably Across the U.S.
African American, Hispanic, and Latino people, as well as individuals with limited education or experiencing poverty, reside in areas disproportionately affected by carcinogenic industrial emissions, a new study finds.
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Adding Polygenic Risk Score Improves Breast Cancer Risk Prediction for Black Women
Risk prediction for incident breast cancer among U.S. Black women was improved with the addition of polygenic risk score (PRS) to questionnaire-based factors. Ruth Pfeiffer and colleagues validated the performance of a previously published PRS for Black women and tested its performance when combined with models using questionnaire-based risk factors. Performance metrics were similar to models for women of European ancestry.
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Zhiwei Liu, Former Tenure-Track Investigator in IIB, Departs DCEG
Zhiwei Liu, Ph.D., former tenure-track investigator in the Infections and Immunoepidemiology Branch, will begin a new position in mid-January. He investigated the role of infection and immune response in the etiology of virus-related cancers—primarily Epstein-Barr virus and nasopharyngeal cancer, and hepatitis B virus and hepatocellular carcinoma.
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NCI Data Science Training Resource Launches
The NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology launched a new data science training resource to help early-career cancer researchers and trainees gain basic skills in navigating the world of cancer data science.
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Barry Graubard, Senior Investigator in Biostatistics, Retires from DCEG
Dr. Barry Graubard retired from DCEG at the beginning of 2024. He focused on developing new statistical methodologies at the interface between biostatistics and survey sampling with particular emphasis on cancer epidemiology, making fundamental contributions to the use of national population-based surveys to improve the representativeness of cohort, case-control, nested case-control, and cross-sectional studies.
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Helicobacter pylori Genome Project Publishes Findings
The Helicobacter pylori Genome Project, an international and multidisciplinary team of ~250 scientists, have sequenced the genomes and mapped the population structure of over one thousand strains of the bacterium H. pylori, known to cause non-cardia gastric cancer, the most common anatomical subtype, collected from around the world.
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IARC Finds Eliminating or Reducing Alcohol Intake Can Lower Risk of Oral, Esophageal Cancer
Christian Abnet and Katherine McGlynn participated in an expert panel, convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which found sufficient evidence that reduction or cessation of alcohol consumption reduces risk for both oral and esophageal cancer.
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Douglas Stewart Elected a Member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation
In December 2023, Dr. Stewart, senior investigator in the Clinical Genetics Branch, was elected a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, one of the nation’s oldest medical honor societies.
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Blanche Alter Receives Lifetime Achievement Award at 2023 ASH Annual Meeting
In December 2023, at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting, Dr. Blanche Alter received the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology, in recognition of her numerous accomplishments in bone marrow failure research.
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Chromosomal Mosaicism May Influence Risk for Burkitt Lymphoma in Children from sub-Saharan Africa
A multi-disciplinary, international team of experts identified differences in the number of mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs) in children from sub-Saharan Africa with Burkitt lymphoma (BL), compared to children without BL. Similar patterns were observed in sub-Saharan African adults. These findings suggest a role for environmental factors in the frequency of mCAs in sub-Saharan African individuals and indicate mCAs in circulating leukocytes could have relevance for future BL risk. These novel findings were published in Nature Communication on December 6, 2023.
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Intramural Research on Hispanic/Latino Populations Meeting
The NIH Intramural Research on Hispanic/Latino Populations Meeting was held in December to promote trans-NIH research collaborations to address health disparities among Hispanic/Latino populations, who are underrepresented in health research. Drs. Constanza Camargo and Katherine McGlynn were two of the meeting organizers.
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2024 Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship Recipient
Dr. Minal B. Patel in the Laboratory of Translational Genomics was selected for the 2024 Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship program.