This application - Melanoma Prevention: Using the Sun - is intended to forward and develop Dr. Berwick's career goals. These are three-fold. (1) Ongoing goal: To conduct studies that will lead to understanding and eliminating morbidity and mortality from melanoma. After obtaining training in immunology, exposure assessment, and epidemiology at Yale University, Dr. Berwick began a systematic research agenda concentrating on the spectrum of cancer prevention for an eminently preventable disease - melanoma. Current studies focus on gene-environment interaction and factors important for survival with melanoma. (2) As a Result of K05 Support: To develop young pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and faculty into productive scientists. Dr. Berwick's research projects provide an excellent platform for new research by junior investigators. Examples of novel initiatives include exploration of interaction effects of sunlight and Vitamin D with the vitamin D receptor and its pathway, immunological factors and hormonal influences on both etiology and survival with melanoma. Her long history of successful mentoring clearly demonstrates Dr. Berwick's leadership skills in fostering the academic development of a new generation of cancer prevention scientists trained to investigate genetics and exposure in relationship to cancer risk. This award would provide time to support the expansion of this mentoring role by freeing up a portion of Dr. Berwick's administrative responsibilities. Dr. Berwick is ideally positioned to assume a senior mentoring role at this time since at the time of this award, all but her primary research supporting this proposal will have been completed or handed over to junior investigators, leaving 40% new time and effort available for new research and mentoring. (3) As a Result of K05 Support: Contribution to the continued growth and refinement of Dr. Berwick's Research Skills and Directions: To impact cancer health disparities in New Mexico by understanding their etiology and developing appropriate and regional-specific interventions. New initiatives to develop population-based case-control studies in New Mexico will provide important understandings of the novel disparities and patterns of cancer incidence, survival and mortality that are present among the state's major ethnic populations: Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites and Native Americans. Dr. Berwick's wide experience in population-based investigations and molecular epidemiology will facilitate these new studies. These goals will be realized through a strong mentoring program developed by Dr. Marianne Berwick, by improving the mentoring and training infrastructure through leveraging existing doctoral and post-doctoral programs and developing new doctoral and post-doctoral positions, and by more thoroughly examining extant and new data in melanoma etiology, progression and etiology which are collected through extramural funding. These goals have been developed through Dr. Berwick's 24 years of mentoring young faculty and investigating the role of solar exposure in the development and progression of cutaneous malignant melanoma. Dr. Berwick's goals - to understand and eliminate morbidity and mortality from melanoma - reflect national cancer priorities to eliminate suffering and death from cancer by 2015. NCI will conduct and support basic, clinical and population research to gain a more complete understanding of the genetic, epigenetic, environmental, behavioral and socio-cultural determinants of cancer and the biological mechanisms underlying cancer resistance, susceptibility, initiation, regression, progression and recurrence. The NCI clearly states that prevention must be based on knowledge developed by integrative population science teams working in the population and in the laboratory.

Public Health Relevance

The objectives of this K05 Application are: (1) To develop young pre-doctoral, post-doctoral and faculty into productive scientists, (2) To contribute to the continued growth and refinement of Dr. Berwick's research skills and directions: To impact cancer health disparities in New Mexico by understanding their etiology and developing appropriate and population-specific interventions, and (3) To conduct studies that will lead to understanding and eliminating morbidity and mortality from melanoma. The results should lead to more faculty trained in cancer prevention, particularly minority faculty, and more evidence-based recommendations for better cancer prevention, particularly for the rapidly increasing tumor, cutaneous melanoma, and enable better survival prediction for melanoma patients.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Scientist Award (K05)
Project #
5K05CA131675-05
Application #
8893014
Study Section
Subcommittee G - Education (NCI)
Program Officer
Perkins, Susan N
Project Start
2011-07-05
Project End
2016-06-30
Budget Start
2015-07-01
Budget End
2016-06-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
$159,998
Indirect Cost
$11,852
Name
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
829868723
City
Albuquerque
State
NM
Country
United States
Zip Code
87131
Berwick, Marianne (2016) Reply to S. Lehrer et al and J.C. Dowdy and R.M. Sayre. J Clin Oncol 34:638-9
Taylor, Nicholas J; Reiner, Anne S; Begg, Colin B et al. (2015) Inherited variation at MC1R and ASIP and association with melanoma-specific survival. Int J Cancer 136:2659-67
Pasquali, Elena; García-Borrón, José C; Fargnoli, Maria Concetta et al. (2015) MC1R variants increased the risk of sporadic cutaneous melanoma in darker-pigmented Caucasians: a pooled-analysis from the M-SKIP project. Int J Cancer 136:618-31
Buller, David B; Berwick, Marianne; Lantz, Kathy et al. (2015) Evaluation of immediate and 12-week effects of a smartphone sun-safety mobile application: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Dermatol 151:505-12
White, K A M; Daneshvari, S; Lilyquist, J et al. (2015) Prediabetes: The Variation between HbA1c and Fasting Plasma Glucose. Int J Diabetol Vasc Dis Res Suppl 2:
Davies, John R; Chang, Yu-mei; Bishop, D Timothy et al. (2015) Development and validation of a melanoma risk score based on pooled data from 16 case-control studies. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 24:817-24
Buller, David B; Berwick, Marianne; Lantz, Kathy et al. (2015) Smartphone mobile application delivering personalized, real-time sun protection advice: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Dermatol 151:497-504
Gibbs, David C; Orlow, Irene; Kanetsky, Peter A et al. (2015) Inherited genetic variants associated with occurrence of multiple primary melanoma. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 24:992-7
Berwick, Marianne; Pestak, Claire; Thomas, Nancy (2014) Solar ultraviolet exposure and mortality from skin tumors. Adv Exp Med Biol 810:342-58
Thomas, Nancy E; Kricker, Anne; Waxweiler, Weston T et al. (2014) Comparison of clinicopathologic features and survival of histopathologically amelanotic and pigmented melanomas: a population-based study. JAMA Dermatol 150:1306-314

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