Environmental/Molecular Epidemiology (Past Initiative)

The environmental/molecular epidemiology research encompasses supported investigator-initiated projects that utilize technological advances and findings in the molecular-based sciences.

Encouraged is the development, validation, and application of cancer-related biological markers (genetic, molecular, cellular, tissue, or organ-specific), particularly to identify and assess risk factors, detect and quantify influential environmental exposures, elucidate mechanisms and pathways or processes that link exposures to cancer, and to identify and evaluate determinants of individual susceptibility to cancer.

Funding success has depended upon the ability of scientists and epidemiologists of diverse expertise and perspectives to collaborate and integrate their approaches to address the same scientific question. To facilitate these interactions, meetings and workshops of investigators are sponsored to discuss shared research interests and methodological issues, and to identify areas of research deficiencies.

Trans-NIH extramural programs collaborate by jointly supporting investigations and grantees' meetings in broad scientific areas, for example, on hormonal carcinogenesis, by NCI and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK); and on environmental carcinogenesis, by NCI, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

The Program Director is Mukesh Verma, Ph.D., Acting Chief, Analytic Epidemiology Research Program (AERB).