NCI Cohort Consortium Events

This webinar will include an overview of theoretical frameworks and data resources for measuring structural and social determinants of health with geospatial data. In addition, innovative methods/approaches for characterizing the attributes of the neighborhood in both non-diseased and cancer survivor cohort studies will be presented. Lastly, opportunities and challenges in applying geospatial data and methods will be discussed.

Learn more about common measurements of aging that may be done using existing cancer epidemiology cohort survey data and biospecimens. Frailty measures and aging trajectory data was presented from the Women’s Health Initiative and other cohorts, and use of non-cancer comparison groups was discussed.

Early-onset colorectal cancer incidence, defined as arising in individuals <50 years of age, has been rapidly rising in the United States and globally. However, reasons for this increasing trend remain unclear. This webinar described early-onset colorectal cancer trends, etiologic studies, and methodological challenges and opportunities within the NCI Cohort Consortium to conduct research on rare tumor “subtypes”. Participants learned more about the Colorectal Cancer Pooling Project and other similar pooling projects and how these efforts can build upon and link with larger ongoing research in this area.

Tumor pathologic features are routinely examined in every cancer case and inform clinical decision making. Across many cancer types, there is a growing interest in immune cells within the tumor microenvironment, which are often strongly associated with patient survival. This webinar will discuss various strategies of immune analyses (including use of routine pathology slides) in population studies. Participants will learn how to incorporate and utilize tumor characteristics data, especially immune cell infiltrates, in population studies. Studies of the associations between exposures and tumor pathology subtypes may provide insight into the etiology of cancer and mechanisms of cancer development.

The California Teachers Study (CTS), a cancer risk cohort study, has developed tools to automate data sharing. This webinar provided a demonstration of those tools as well as an overview of the data and technology that those tools use. The promotion of data sharing is a goal area of the Cohort Consortium. Cohort investigators and research teams will gain a better understanding of how they can request and use CTS data in their individual or Consortium projects and take steps to share their data in similar ways.

The NCI Cohort Consortium Associate Member Council (AMC) is the representative body of early career investigators within the NCI Cohort Consortium. It serves to engage and support early career investigators through professional development, career networking opportunities, and research collaborations within the NCI Cohort Consortium and to position members of the next generation of investigators to attain leadership roles within the Consortium. This webinar included a panel discussion in which speakers addressed skills for navigating work and productivity during the pandemic. Strategies included goal setting, saying “no” and protecting your time (and sanity), networking and leading teams remotely, and starting a new position during the pandemic.

In March 2020, Dr. Andrew T. Chan organized the COronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology (COPE) consortium, which includes over 20 cohorts that have deployed a mobile app to collect real-time data about COVID-19 across three countries. In this webinar, Dr. Chan provided an update on the progress of COPE, lessons learned so far, and implementation in cancer cohorts.