The vision of the Epidemiology and Cancer Control Program (ECC) is to reduce the cancer burden in the PCC catchment area and beyond. To achieve this vision, we aim to conduct innovative and high impact research, discovering risk factors and translating this knowledge into effective cancer control. Under the dynamic new leadership of Jiyoung Ahn and Donna Shelley, ECC organizes its research efforts into four complementary thematic aims:
Aim1 : to discover and effectively control cancer-causing microbial risk factors;
Aim 2 : to assess and effectively control environmental and behavioral risk factors;
Aim 3 : to improve early detection and risk prediction for high-risk individuals;
and Aim 4 : to optimize cancer care delivery to patients through health services research. The Program is composed of 33 members and 11 associate members from 12 academic departments in the NYU School of Medicine (NYUSoM), particularly our new Department of Population Health, as well as the NYU College of Nursing, College of Dentistry, and the new College of Global Public Health. ECC members currently have 60 funded projects totaling $10.5M in annual direct costs, $2.7M from NCI (39% of peer-reviewed funding). Our members are highly collaborative, as indicated by 21% intra- and 33% inter- programmatic collaborations, 33% inter-institutional collaborations (with other NCI-CCs), and 22 multi-PI grants. Program members published 686 papers in the current period, including many in top tier journals, such as NEJM, Lancet, and JAMA Pediatrics (15% of publications [n=102] have IF>10). Our signature research on the microbiome has led to novel discoveries of cancer-causing microbial risk factors, published in JAMA Oncology, Gut, JNCI and already cited more than 250 times; these paradigm-shifting hypotheses on microbial contribution to these malignancies have also fueled translation to clinical trials and new avenues of basic science research. Our work on developing innovative smoking control methods and assessing air pollution? cancer risk relationships impacted major health policy locally in our catchment area and nationally. Our health services research, including studies of optimized imaging use and active surveillance, helped inform standard guidelines of care for prostate cancer patients. ECC has continued to make exceptionally high impact scientific contributions, with particular attention to the needs of our unique catchment area.
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