Program Members

Co-Leaders

James Herman

James Herman

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

hermanj3@upmc.edu Hillman Cancer Center, 2.18d
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • Biomarkers,cancer prognosis,DNA Methylation,early detection,Epigenetics,Lung Cancer,Transcription Factors,tumor suppressor genes
Read More about James Herman
Jian-Min Yuan

Jian-Min Yuan

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-864-7889 yuanj@upmc.edu UPMC Cancer Pavilion
5150 Centre Avenue - Suite 4C Office 470
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Yuan is a cancer epidemiologist with extensive experience in research on cancer etiology and prevention. Dr. Yuan is Principal Investigator of the Shanghai Cohort Study and the Singapore Chinese Health Study, two population-based prospective cohorts of more than 80,000 Chinese men and women with available baseline blood and urine samples with more than 25 years of active follow-up for cancer and other major health outcomes.

Utilizing these two large cohort resources coupled with a biomarker approach, Dr. Yuan and his research team have made several noteworthy contributions to the field of cancer epidemiology including (1) dietary aflatoxins as human hepatocarcinogens, (2) dietary isothiocyanates, a group of phytochemicals found in cruciferous vegetables, as potential chemopreventive agents against lung cancer development, and (3) urinary biomarkers of nicotine, tobacco-specific nitrosamines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as risk predictors for lung cancer in smokers.

 

Dr. Yuan also has extensive experience in designing and conducting randomized, double-blind intervention studies on cancer prevention. Dr. Yuan is leading the effort to conduct a randomized, double-blind phase II clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of dietary 2-phenethyl isothiocyanates (PEITC) supplementation on reduction of risk markers for lung cancer in smokers. In addition, Dr. Yuan, collaborating with Dr. Mindy Kurzer, his former colleague at the University of Minnesota, is conducting a randomized, double-blind phase II clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of oral supplementation of green tea extracts (Polyphenon E) on reduction of risk markers for breast cancer in women.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • cancer biomarkers,cancer epidemiology,Cancer prevention,cancer risk prediction,Clinical Trials,dietary chemopreventive agents,Gene-environment interaction in cancer etiology
Read More about Jian-Min Yuan

View Investigators by Last Name

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Members

Jaideep Behari

Jaideep Behari

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Jaideep Behari
Wendie Berg

Wendie Berg

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 641-1635 bergwa@upmc.edu UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital
300 Halket St.
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • Comparative effectiveness of new technologies in breast imaging
  • Comparison of tomosynthesis and ultrasound for cancer detection
  • Risk assessment and breast density
  • Supplemental screening for breast cancer based on risk
Read More about Wendie Berg
Randall Brand

Randall Brand

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

brandre@upmc.edu Shadyside Medical Building
5200 Centre Avenue, Suite 409
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • colon cancer
  • early detection of pancreatic cancer
  • Hereditary pancreatic cancer
  • Pancreatitis
Read More about Randall Brand
Jane Cauley

Jane Cauley

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

jcauley@pitt.edu 130 De Soto Street, A533 Crabtree Hall
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Cauley's primary research interest is the epidemiology of osteoporosis, osteoporosis treatment and the consequences of osteoporosis in both men and women. She also has a major interest in breast cancer and served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology Writing Group about the use of bisphosphonates in women with breast cancer. Her other research has focused on women's health and aging, falls, the interaction between endogenous and exogenous hormones, risk factors, inflammation, and disease outcomes. She examines the physical and psychological changes that occur in postmenopausal women.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • Breast Cancer
  • Epidemiology
  • Osteoporosis
  • sex hormones
Read More about Jane Cauley
Kathryn Demanelis

Kathryn Demanelis

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(216) 926-3749 demanelisk@upmc.edu Hillman Cancer Center Research Pavilion
5117 Centre Ave
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

My training is in molecular cancer and environmental epidemiology. Through my doctoral and postdoctoral research, I developed skills in advanced statistical analysis and programming, genetics, epigenomics, and cancer registry analysis. Given my data science skills and ability to translate data results to practice (e.g. grants, research directions, clinic), I was hired to serve as collaborator and resource for HCC investigators and as bridge between the epidemiology and biostatistics groups at HCC. My research interests focus on 1) utilizing cancer registry data to explore socio-economic, racial, and environmental disparities in cancer incidence and mortality and 2) exploring the interplay among toxicants, aging, and dynamic genomic features (e.g., telomeres, DNA methylation and somatic mutations) and the effect of this interplay on cancer development and prognosis. My current research profile at HCC includes characterizing cancer incidence, mortality, and survival disparities and trends in western PA, examining radon and fracking exposures on cancer risk in PA, and evaluating genetic predictors associated with head and neck cancer survival. I plan to become more involved in projects related to environmental somatic mutational signatures in cancer, DNA methylation biomarkers in cancer detection, risk, and prognosis, and other epigenomic and genomic studies of cancer risk and survival.

Read More about Kathryn Demanelis
Brenda Diergaarde

Brenda Diergaarde

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-623-5891 diergaardeb@upmc.edu UPMC Cancer Pavilion
5150 Centre Ave, Suite 4C
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Diergaarde's research examines the role of diet, lifestyle and genetic variation in the development, progression and treatment of cancer, including cancers of the lung, head and neck, colon, ovaries and breast, and aims to identify markers for risk stratification, early detection and response to treatment. She is currently Co-Leader of Project 2 of the UPCI Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Lung Cancer. This project seeks to establish the relationship between vitamin D exposure, pulmonary inflammation and lung cancer risk and so provide strong rationale for a vitamin D-based approach to lung cancer prevention. She is also Leader of Project 1 of the UPCI SPORE in Head and Neck Cancer. Using data and samples from a large, clinic-based case-control study, this project investigates the role of genetic variation and gene-environment interactions in the development, progression and treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • Biomarkers
  • cancer epidemiology
  • Cancer prevention
  • Diet
  • Genetic Variation
  • head and neck cancer
  • lifestyle
  • Lung Cancer
  • Molecular Epidemiology
Read More about Brenda Diergaarde
Laura Ferris

Laura Ferris

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-647-4200 ferrislk@upmc.edu 3708 Fifth Avenue
Fifth Floor, Suite 500.68
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Melanoma is a deadly cancer when caught late yet is a surgically curable disease when detected and treated at the earliest stages. Fortunately, most melanomas begin on the skin, and thus we have the opportunity to detect them using visual examination. However, early detection of melanoma can be challenging even for the most experienced dermatologists. This can lead to failure to detect melanoma when it is most treatable or to a high rate of removal of benign lesions. Both increase health care costs and put patients at risk. My research focuses on new techniques to improve the early detection of cutaneous melanoma. Computer vision technology can be applied to the analysis of specialized images of pigmented skin lesions taken using a handheld instrument called a dermatoscope. We are studying ways to use the objective, analytical power of the computer to take a dermatoscopic image of a pigmented skin lesion and rapidly quantify features such as symmetry, size, and color distribution. The system can then compare a lesion that has not been biopsied to a database of images from lesions for which a diagnosis has been made using histopathology following removal (the gold standard for diagnosis of melanoma and other skin lesions) to aid the user in making a decision of whether or not to biopsy. In addition, I am interested in understanding which patients benefit most from screening for melanoma and have several publications that examine melanoma epidemiology, detection patterns, and associations between melanoma screening and outcomes.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • dermatoscope
  • early detection
  • Melanoma
  • screening
Read More about Laura Ferris
Peng Gao

Peng Gao

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(352) 284-1758 peg47@pitt.edu 130 DeSoto Street
Room 4130
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

I am an analytical chemist trained in both environmental and biomedical sciences. I have extensively analyzed various carcinogens that are presented in environmental and biological samples. My long-term goal is to integrate exposomics with multi-omics profiles and investigate how the exposome impacts human health, as well as better understand the etiology of chronic and idiopathic diseases. Specifically, I am highly interested in applying our developed approach to studying cancer etiology and prevention.

Read More about Peng Gao
Eun-Ryeong Hahm

Eun-Ryeong Hahm

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 623-3262 hahme@upmc.edu Hillman Cancer Center Research Pavilion Lab 2.31
5117 Centre Avenue
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

My research interests focus on preclinical and clinical development of novel agents from natural products for prevention of prostate and breast cancer in humans and understanding their molecular mechanism of action against cancer using in vitro and in vivo test systems. Natural products include dietary sources (such as garlic, broccoli, watercress, etc.) and traditional Oriental and Indian medicinal plants. Cancer chemoprevention can be defined as the use of natural or synthetic agents to delay, reverse or suppress cancer progression. I am also interested in identifying biomarkers to assess chemopreventive agent response in future clinical trials using cutting-edge Omics technology.

Read More about Eun-Ryeong Hahm
James Herman

James Herman

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

hermanj3@upmc.edu Hillman Cancer Center, 2.18d
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • Biomarkers
  • cancer prognosis
  • DNA Methylation
  • early detection
  • Epigenetics
  • Lung Cancer
  • Transcription Factors
  • tumor suppressor genes
Read More about James Herman
Harry Hochheiser

Harry Hochheiser

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 648-9300 harryh@pitt.edu Dept of Biomedical Informatics
5607 Baum Boulevard
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

My cancer research interests focus on the development of tools designed to make information more useful for translational researchers. Since 2014, I have been a co-investigator and then MPI (with Guergana Savova of Boston Children’s Hospital and Jeremy Warner of Vanderbilt University) on an NCIfunded project “Cancer Deep Phenotyping from Electronic Medical Records”(U24 CA248010-01A1). Known as “DeepPhe”, this project is aimed at extracting longitudinal patient histories from clinical notes via Natural Language Processing and developing visual analytics tools that will facilitate the use of this data for cohort discovery. My role in this effort has been to lead qualitative inquiries into clinician information needs and goals, as needed to guide the design of interactive tools. With additional NCI funding starting in 2019, and with the added collaboration of Eric Durbin of the University of Kentucky/Kentucky Cancer registry, we are working to adapt these tools to facilitate cancer registry data abstraction processes (UG3 CA243120-02).

Read More about Harry Hochheiser
Jing Hu

Jing Hu

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

huj3@upmc.edu 5117 Centre Avenue, Suite 2.32B
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • Cancer Biology
  • Histone Deacetylases
  • post-translational modifications
  • Protein kinases and phosphatases
  • sumoylation
Read More about Jing Hu
Bruce Jacobs

Bruce Jacobs

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Bruce Jacobs
Maureen Lichtveld

Maureen Lichtveld

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 624-4603 mlichtve@pitt.edu University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
130 DeSoto Street
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Prior to joining Pitt GSPH I served as the Associate Director for Population Sciences of the Tulane University Cancer Center for 15 years. I also represented Tulane on the NCI GMAP region 2 consortium. My cancer-related research focuses on cancer health disparities locally and globally with a special emphasis on the Caribbean. Of special interest is the role exposures to chemicals and non-chemicals stressors play in cancer development.

Read More about Maureen Lichtveld
Anna Lokshin

Anna Lokshin

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Anna Lokshin
Hung Luu

Hung Luu

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Hung Luu
Phuong Mai

Phuong Mai

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Phuong Mai
Gary Marsh

Gary Marsh

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Gary Marsh
Angela Mazul

Angela Mazul

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 623-3958 alm758@pitt.edu 5150 Centre Ave.
UPMC Cancer Pavilion, 4th Floor, Room 469
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

I am interested in reducing health disparities through understanding the complex pathways socioeconomic status and stress affects cancer genomics and, subsequently population health. My current work focuses on neighborhood socioeconomic metrics that may influence head and neck cancer through the cancer care continuum. I aim to develop a case-control study with prospective follow-up of patients in Western Pennsylvania to elucidate this pathway in head and neck cancer. 

Read More about Angela Mazul
Francesmary Modugno

Francesmary Modugno

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Francesmary Modugno
Stephen O'Keefe

Stephen O'Keefe

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Stephen O'Keefe
Jiantao Pu

Jiantao Pu

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Jiantao Pu
Robert Schoen

Robert Schoen

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

schoen@msx.dept-med.pitt.edu PUH - Mezz. 2 - C Wing
200 Lothrop Street
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • acceptability and implementation of CRC screening
  • Early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer (CRC)
  • flexible sigmoidoscopy
  • surveillance colonoscopy
Read More about Robert Schoen
Shivendra Singh

Shivendra Singh

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-623-3262 singhs@upmc.edu 2.32A Hillman Cancer Research Pavilion
5117 Centre Ave
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

The primary research interests of the Singh laboratory include molecular characterization of novel cancer chemopreventive agents and rational design of mechanism-driven combination chemoprevention regimens. Cellular and transgenic animal models are used to screen potential cancer chemopreventive constituents from dietary and medicinal plants. Cutting edge cellular, molecular biological, omics (metabolomics and proteomics), structural biology, and imaging techniques (MRI and bioluminescence) are used to (a) determine the mechanism of action of promising cancer chemopreventive agents, (b) monitor effects on cancer progression, and (c) identify biomarkers predictive of tissue exposure and possibly response. Some of the agents under active investigation in the Singh laboratory include: cruciferous vegetable-derived isothiocyanates, garlic-derived organosulides, and medicinal plant constituent withaferin A. As an example, recent published work from the Singh laboratory indicates suppression of glycolysis in mammary cancer prevention by withaferin A in a transgenic mouse model. Likewise, complementary cellular and molecular biological, targeted proteomics, and molecular modeling techniques were used to identify beta-tubulin as a novel target of cancer cell growth arrest by withaferin A (WA).

Research Interests and Keywords
  • Cancer pharmacology
  • Cancer prevention
  • Chemoprevention
  • dietary anti-cancer compounds
  • Drug Discovery
  • isothiocynates
  • organosulides
  • withaferin A
Read More about Shivendra Singh
Evelyn Talbott

Evelyn Talbott

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-624-3074 eot1@pitt.edu A526 Crabtree Hall
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Talbott's areas of expertise are in environmental and cardiovascular epidemiology. Dr. Talbott has worked closely with both state and local health departments to conduct health studies investigating potential linkage of environmental exposures and health effects.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • environmental epidemiology
Read More about Evelyn Talbott
Curtis Tatsuoka

Curtis Tatsuoka

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 623-4576 cut4@pitt.edu UPMC Cancer Pavilion, Rm 464
5150 Centre Ave
Pittsburgh PA
Read More about Curtis Tatsuoka
Yanshan Wang

Yanshan Wang

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

(412) 383-2712 yanshan.wang@pitt.edu 6026 Forbes Tower
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

My research focuses on clinical cancer informatics including digital phenotyping, informatics infrastructure research, cohort explore, disease trajectory prediction, mainly using electronic health records. I have led several NIH-funded projects, which aimed to develop NLP and AI algorithms to automatically extract information from free-text electronic health records (EHRs), such as clinical notes, radiology reports, and pathology reports. I proposed several novel NLP methodologies to improve information retrieval (IR) and information extraction (IE) from clinical notes and applied those novel NLP approaches in multiple cancer information extraction, for example cancer stage information, histology information, cancer subtypes. I also developed cohort explore tools for cancer clinical trial feasibility studies and patient recruitment using EHRs.

Read More about Yanshan Wang
David Whitcomb

David Whitcomb

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

whitcomb@pitt.edu Mezzanine Level
C-Wing-PUH 200 Lothrop Street
Pittsburgh PA
Research Interests and Keywords
  • and pancreatic cancer
  • chronic pancreatitis
  • Mechanisms of complex disorders including acute pancreatitis
Read More about David Whitcomb
David Wilson

David Wilson

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-687-3355 wilsondo@upmc.edu 5150 Centre Ave. Ste. 4c
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Wilson's research interests include: lung cancer screening and chemoprevention, diagnosis, staging and treatment; COPD, especially as it relates to lung cancer; occupational lung diseases; and general pulmonary medicine.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • Chemoprevention
  • COPD
  • Diagnosis
  • lung cancer screening
  • pulmonary medicine
  • staging and treatment
Read More about David Wilson
Shandong Wu

Shandong Wu

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

Read More about Shandong Wu
Linwah Yip

Linwah Yip

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-647-0467 yipl@upmc.edu Kaufmann Building
3471 Fifth Ave, Suite 101
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Yip's primary research interest is evaluating the role of molecular markers in thyroid and parathyroid cancer to improve risk stratification and optimize efficacy in patient management algorithms.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • Biomarkers
  • molecular markers
  • parathyroid cancer
  • Thyroid cancer
Read More about Linwah Yip
Jian-Min Yuan

Jian-Min Yuan

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-864-7889 yuanj@upmc.edu UPMC Cancer Pavilion
5150 Centre Avenue - Suite 4C Office 470
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

Dr. Yuan is a cancer epidemiologist with extensive experience in research on cancer etiology and prevention. Dr. Yuan is Principal Investigator of the Shanghai Cohort Study and the Singapore Chinese Health Study, two population-based prospective cohorts of more than 80,000 Chinese men and women with available baseline blood and urine samples with more than 25 years of active follow-up for cancer and other major health outcomes.

Utilizing these two large cohort resources coupled with a biomarker approach, Dr. Yuan and his research team have made several noteworthy contributions to the field of cancer epidemiology including (1) dietary aflatoxins as human hepatocarcinogens, (2) dietary isothiocyanates, a group of phytochemicals found in cruciferous vegetables, as potential chemopreventive agents against lung cancer development, and (3) urinary biomarkers of nicotine, tobacco-specific nitrosamines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as risk predictors for lung cancer in smokers.

 

Dr. Yuan also has extensive experience in designing and conducting randomized, double-blind intervention studies on cancer prevention. Dr. Yuan is leading the effort to conduct a randomized, double-blind phase II clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of dietary 2-phenethyl isothiocyanates (PEITC) supplementation on reduction of risk markers for lung cancer in smokers. In addition, Dr. Yuan, collaborating with Dr. Mindy Kurzer, his former colleague at the University of Minnesota, is conducting a randomized, double-blind phase II clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of oral supplementation of green tea extracts (Polyphenon E) on reduction of risk markers for breast cancer in women.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • cancer biomarkers
  • cancer epidemiology
  • Cancer prevention
  • cancer risk prediction
  • Clinical Trials
  • dietary chemopreventive agents
  • Gene-environment interaction in cancer etiology
Read More about Jian-Min Yuan
Joseph Zmuda

Joseph Zmuda

Program: Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention

412-624-2970 zmudaj@edc.pitt.edu A544 Crabtree Hall
Pittsburgh PA
Summary

My research primarily focuses on the epidemiology and genetics of osteoporosis. A long-term goal is to identify and characterize the genetic factors underlying osteoporosis susceptibility in different ethnic/racial groups. To achieve these goals, we have used several strategies including: population-based candidate gene methods; genome-wide admixture, linkage and association mapping; and most recently, an in vitro cellular model. This later approach is enabling us to translate discoveries made at the cellular level to the 'population' and vice versa to gain insight into the molecular genetic mechanisms underlying osteoporosis susceptibility.

Research Interests and Keywords
  • Aging
  • Genetic and molecular epidemiology
  • Osteoporosis
Read More about Joseph Zmuda

View Investigators by Last Name

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z