EGRP Cancer Epidemiology News

January 2025

• 2024 Year in Review
• Other Funding Opportunities
• Requests for Information
• Grants Policy Announcements
• Reports
• News and Blog Posts

2024 Year in Review

Message from Associate Director, Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program

Greetings,

As we embark on a new year, I want to take a moment to reflect on 2024 and my first year as Associate Director of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP). Personally, it has been a time of learning, growth, and collaboration. One of the highlights has undoubtedly been the chance to engage directly with EGRP's grantees and collaborators at various scientific meetings and conferences, including the Participant Engagement and Cancer Genome Sequencing (PE-CGS) Network Meeting, the Cohorts for Environmental Exposures and Cancer Risks (CEECR) Symposium, the American Society of Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and Medically Underserved, and the NCI Cohort Consortium Annual Meeting. Another highlight in this new journey has been getting to know EGRP's dedicated team and their commitment to advancing EGRP’s mission. This engagement across the board have been invaluable in broadening my understanding of the groundbreaking research being conducted in EGRP to advance cancer epidemiology and genomics research and the importance of collaboration in driving progress.

It has certainly been a time of progress for the program. In this newsletter, you can read more about some of EGRP’s achievements over the past year, including a new program director in our Genomic Epidemiology Branch, funding opportunities that EGRP staff are scientific contacts for, scientific webinars and meetings that EGRP supported, and updates to research resources that EGRP makes available to the broader scientific community.

May the coming year bring even greater opportunities to further our mission in cancer epidemiology research. On behalf of the entire EGRP team, I hope you and your loved ones had a joyful and peaceful holiday.

Warmest regards,
Erin Siegel

New EGRP Program Director

In April, Sarah Kalia, PhD, SM, ScM, joined EGRP’s Genomic Epidemiology Branch (GEB). Her responsibilities include developing and managing a portfolio of grants that focuses on genetic susceptibility to cancer and issues around the interpretation and reporting of genetic results.

Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Kalia worked in health economics and outcomes research, and she also has prior experience directing research development, managing projects, and working as a genetic counselor in the Genomes2People research program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Kalia has served in several roles for the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC), including as chair of the NSGC Practice Guidelines Committee.

Supporting Research

EGRP’s Grants Portfolio and Funding Opportunities Issued in 2024

EGRP joins with other divisions, offices, and centers at NCI and other NIH institutes to fund investigator-initiated research and applications submitted in response to funding opportunities. EGRP supports projects in the United States and globally. We are happy to report that the overall number of funded projects that EGRP oversees increased in fiscal year 2024 to 346 grants valued at $254 million, including 56 early-stage investigators.

Learn more about EGRP's portfolio as part of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences’ recently released 2024 research portfolio page with interactive graphs and maps. A list of active cancer epidemiology and genomics projects (and sub-projects) funded by EGRP is also available.

Funding Opportunities that EGRP Staff were Involved With

EGRP staff were involved with 20 new funding opportunities in 2024 that are still accepting applications.

The following 22 funding announcements that staff were involved with were issued with the new simplified review framework review criteria.*

EGRP staff were involved with 3 new funding opportunities in 2024 that are no longer accepting applications.

Scientific Meetings and Webinars

In collaboration with other NCI and NIH programs, EGRP staff planned several scientific meetings to bring together experts and interested individuals to collaborate regarding solutions to scientific questions and research needs.

• EGRP staff organized and participated in the Think Tank on Advancing Gastric Cancer Prevention on May 17, 2024. The aim of the Think Tank was to provide a forum for a multidisciplinary group of gastric cancer experts to review the state of the science and collaboratively identify critical knowledge gaps.
• Two EGRP staff members were involved in a two-day workshop, Population Descriptors for Legacy Genomic Data: Challenges and Future Directions, on May 28-29, 2024. This workshop brought together leaders of genomic data science resources, researchers who use legacy data, and other partners to make recommendations regarding the application of population descriptors to existing data.
• EGRP staff members were also involved in two multi-day workshops hosted by the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR): Obesity-Related Policy, Systems, and Environmental Research in the US (OPUS). OPUS I, which took place June 4-5, 2024, featured presentations from leading obesity-prevention and public health experts. The workshop examined best practices in obesity prevention research with specific attention to community engagement and systems change through an equity lens. Then on October 9-10, 2024, OPUS II focused on the next generation of equity-centered, community-engaged policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) interventions for childhood obesity prevention. This virtual workshop explored critical methodological considerations, innovative research approaches, and practical strategies for evaluating PSE interventions.
• EGRP staff planned and participated in the Oral Microbiome in Health and Systemic Diseases meeting, which was held on June 25, 2024. Objectives included improving current knowledge of mechanisms of host interactions with the oral microbiome affecting host health and disease, identifying knowledge gaps and research priorities for oral microbiome studies that define mechanisms in both local and distal tissues that contribute to disease development, identifying interventions for modulating oral microbiota for disease interception and risk reduction, and evaluating tools and methodologies for analyzing oral microbiome.
• An EGRP program director was involved in a workshop, Using AI to Better Understand Menopause, which took place on September 4, 2024. The event aimed to allow researchers from different disciplines to identify gaps in the science and share promising techniques and continuing challenges that could be solved by collaborative research in the future, ultimately resulting in the development of novel teams of women’s health researchers in the United States.
• EGRP hosted the 2024 NCI Cohort Consortium Annual Meeting from November 12-15, 2024. The goal was to bring together consortium members and other interested researchers to discuss emerging science; ideas for new scientific projects; scientific progress of the consortium’s projects and groups; as well as gaps and opportunities for collaboration across studies.
• EGRP staff planned and participated in the NIH-FDA Nutrition Regulatory Science Workshop, which took place December 17-18, 2024. The goal of this joint NIH-FDA workshop was to highlight how nutrition science can generate evidence and data to inform food-related policy and regulatory decision making and to foster additional collaboration between NIH and FDA in supporting research that addresses priority nutrition research gaps. Some topics that were discussed at the workshop: ultra-processed foods, impact analysis and implementation science related to regulatory actions, and emerging technological innovations related to nutrition regulatory science.

EGRP staff also organized and participated in more than 15 scientific webinars in 2024, most of which have been archived and are available to watch. These webinars were part of ongoing series focused on:

• Cancer and aging
• Environmental epidemiology and cancer
• Infectious agents and cancer
• NCI Cohort Consortium
• Sequencing strategies for population and cancer epidemiology studies, including a special webinar on December 3, 2024, that marked the 10-year anniversary of the series

There were also ad hoc webinars, including:

• Pre-application Webinar for NOT-CA-25-004, Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements for Assessing Capacity to Address Obesity for Cancer Prevention and Control
• Pre-application Tech Assistance Webinar for RFA-MD-24-010: P50 Environmental Health Disparities Centers
• Pre-application Webinar: Impacts of Climate Change Across the Cancer Control Continuum
• Digital Health Technology Derived Biomarkers and Outcome Assessments for Remote Monitoring
• Smart Health Frontiers: Combating Cancer with Advanced Technologies
• Accelerating DHT Research and Drug Development with Open-Source Big Data from Population Studies

More details about upcoming and past webinars are available on the EGRP events web page.

Updated Research Resources

EGRP supports a number of web-based tools that can be used for research-related purposes. EGRP’s collection of dietary assessment resources was updated in 2024 to include:

Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment Tool

• ASA24 is a free, web-based tool that enables multiple, automatically coded, self-administered 24-hour diet recalls and/or single or multi-day food records. Some of the most common uses on ASA24 include epidemiologic, interventional, behavioral, and clinical research. In April 2024, NCI released ASA24-2024, which includes updated food codes and nutrient values, along with new portion size food images for some popular foods. More information about ASA24, including a demo version, is available on EGRP’s website.

Linking ASA24 and NHANES Data with the Nova Classification System for Industrial Food Processing

• The Linking ASA24 and NHANES Data with the Nova Classification System for Industrial Food Processing webpage, developed in June 2024, provides information on how to request database files linking food codes from the United States Department of Agriculture, by version of ASA24, and cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, to the Nova Classification System for industrial food processing.

To learn more about these and other research resources, please visit https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/research-resources/.

Other Funding Opportunities

Requests for Information

Grants Policy Announcements

Reports

News and Blog Posts