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Danielle Carrick, PhD, MHS
Program Director, Genomic Epidemiology Branch
Molecular epidemiology of cancer risk related to inflammation and immune response
carrick@mail.nih.gov
Rao L. Divi, PhD
Program Director, Methods and Technologies Branch
Immune monitoring technologies development and validation, and utilizing them in hypothesis testing
divir@mail.nih.gov
Stefanie A. Nelson, PhD
Program Director, Genomic Epidemiology Branch
Germline genetics of immune response
nelsons@mail.nih.gov
Mukesh Verma, PhD
Branch Chief, Methods and Technologies Branch
Methods and technologies related to biomarkers for cancer risk, muti-omics, infectious agents, epigenetics
vermam@mail.nih.gov
Dana Wolff-Hughes, PhD
Program Director, Risk Factor Assessment Branch
Digital and artificial intelligence biomarkers, models for multidimensional cancer risk factors
dana.wolff@nih.gov
Overview
Immunoepidemiology is the study of the vast array of immune responses in populations and the factors that influence it, with the goals of understanding variability in host immune responses and the biological and environmental factors that influence this response. The immune system plays a protective role in cancer by defending against carcinogenic infectious agents, generating responses against exposure-induced damage, moderating inflammation that can contribute to carcinogenesis, and detecting nascent tumor cells through a process called immunosurveillance.
Immunology has implications across widespread cancer epidemiology studies that aim to understand immune status, immune competence, and immune resilience in relation to cancer risk, development, progression, survival outcomes and in the context of other risk factors. Moreover, monitoring the immune status of a population at appropriate intervals allows planning and evaluation of intervention programs, quick recognition and investigation of unknown factors, and discovery of antigenic variation or resistant genotypes associated with host immune protection from exogenous agents.
Immunoepidemiology studies may use immune markers to understand the impact of exposures on cancer risk, incorporate immune measures to identify health disparities in cancer risk and outcomes, or investigate the impact of germline variation in immune components on cancer outcomes and treatment efficacy.
Funding Opportunities
The Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) in the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) partners with others at NCI and NIH to foster investigator-initiated research to address critical issues in different types of cancer research and throughout the cancer control continuum. These include:
- Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science (SCH) - expires October 4, 2025
EGRP encourages investigator-initiated grant applications on this topic.
EGRP joins with other NCI Divisions, Offices, and Centers and other Institutes and Centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund grant applications submitted in response to funding opportunities.
View other EGRP, NCI, and NIH funding opportunities
Related Research Resources
The following are NIH supported immunology databases and research tools
- IMMPORT immunology database and analytic tools
ImmPort has released a set of immunologically relevant gene lists
that are curated from “Immune System” event in the Reactome Database and the "Immune System Process" term in the GO Database - ImmuneSpace
The Human Immunology Project Consortium is characterizing human immune responses using systems-level immune profiling technologies. These data are available on ImmuneSpace, along with tools to query and analyze the data.
Related Workshops
- Unraveling Links between Chronic Inflammation and Long COVID (September 2023)
- Metabolic Regulation of Inflammation and Its Resolution (June 2021)
- Tandon P et al. Metabolic Regulation of Inflammation and its Resolution: Current Status, Clinical Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities. J Immunol. 2021 Dec 1; 207(11):2625-2630.
- Trans–NIH Workshop on Imaging Inflammation and Its Resolution in Health and Disease (June 2019)
- Liu CH et al. Imaging inflammation and its resolution in health and disease: current status, clinical needs, challenges, and opportunities. FASEB J. 2019 Oct 9; 33(12):13085-13097.
- Chronic Inflammation Biomarkers in Disease Development and Prevention (May – June 2017)
- Liu CH et al. Biomarkers of chronic inflammation in disease development and prevention: challenges and opportunities. Nat Immunol. 2017 Oct 18; 18(11):1175-80.
- Using Immune Marker Panels to Uncover the Role of Inflammation in Cancer (June 2014)