Bio-Behavioral Smoking Profiles in Mexican Origin Youth

描述(申请人提供)：我的长期目标是成为一名公认的独立生物行为流行病学家，并设计、实施和分析结合遗传和非遗传影响的研究，这些研究将影响癌症和其他健康结果的行为。我的建议建立在我以前在社区心理学和量化方法方面的培训基础上，并概述了在遗传学、流行病学和分析技术方面的进一步培训。我已经制定了一个全面的教育和指导计划，将在这些领域提供密集的指导。我的研究建立在正在进行的R01(R01 CA105203-01；Spitz Pi)的基础上，该研究确定了非遗传因素和遗传因素在休斯顿大都市区1300名墨西哥裔美国年轻人吸烟和尼古丁依赖试验中的相对影响。我将通过评估文化适应、寻求感觉的倾向、参与体育活动的行为方面，以及完成DRD2、DRD4和多巴胺转运体基因的额外基因分型，来扩展和丰富父母赠款中的数据。我之所以关注这些多态，是因为它们与感觉寻求、体育活动和吸烟行为有关。这些额外的数据将允许对文化适应和PA对体验香烟与潜在的基于行为和遗传的感觉寻求差异之间的关系的潜在缓和和/或中介影响进行新的评估。我还将研究尼古丁胆碱能受体基因在其他人群中尼古丁依赖中的重要作用，以证实墨西哥裔美国人的这种关系。在参加家长研究的青少年参与者中，我的具体目标是：1)评估文化适应(语言和行为方面)和感觉寻求倾向对香烟实验和身体活动水平的独立影响；2)确定文化适应或身体活动是否缓和了感觉寻求对香烟实验的影响；3)探索选定候选基因的变异如何影响香烟实验和身体活动，或两者兼而有之。在K07中收集的额外数据将使我能够专注于目前在亲代R01中无法解决的问题，将导致新假说的产生，并将使更彻底地研究多巴胺奖励途径中的基因变异。额外的数据将被添加到在父母R01收集的数据中，以开发针对心理社会、背景和遗传易感性的定量多变量风险评估模型，以识别高危青少年亚群。从长远来看，这些发现将使我们能够开发更有效的、文化上合适的学校和社区干预措施，以促进更健康的生活方式。最近，我被推荐晋升为助理教授。我相信，晋升和获得这一奖学金的净效果将开启我在癌症预防方面的职业生涯。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): My long-term goal is to become an established independent bio-behavioral epidemiologist and to design, implement and analyze studies that combine genetic and non-genetic influences on behaviors that effect cancer and other health outcomes. My proposal builds upon my previous training in community psychology and quantitative methods, and outlines further training in genetics, epidemiology and analytic techniques. I have developed a comprehensive education and mentoring plan that will provide intensive instruction in these areas. My research builds upon an ongoing R01 (R01 CA105203-01; Spitz PI) that determines the relative influences of non-genetic and genetic factors in experimenting with cigarettes and nicotine dependence in 1,300 Mexican-American youth in the Houston metropolitan area. I will extend and enrich the data from the parent grant by assessing behavioral aspects of acculturation, sensation-seeking tendencies, participation in physical activities, and by completing additional genotyping on DRD2, DRD4, and the dopamine transporter gene. I focus on these polymorphisms because they are associated with sensation seeking, physical activity and smoking behaviors. These additional data will permit novel assessments of the potential moderating and/or mediating influences that acculturation and PA have on the relationship between experimenting with cigarettes and underlying behavioral- and genetic-based variations in sensation seeking. I also will examine the role of nicotinic cholinergic receptor genes that have been identified to be important in nicotine dependence among other populations to confirm this relationship in Mexican Americans. Among the adolescent participants enrolled in the parent study, my specific aims are to: 1) assess the independent effects of acculturation (linguistic and behavioral aspects) and sensation-seeking tendencies on experimentation with cigarettes and level of physical activity; 2) determine if either acculturation or physical activity moderate the influence of sensation seeking on experimentation with cigarettes; and 3) explore how variants in selected candidate genes influence experimenting with cigarettes, physical activity, or both. The additional data collected in this K07 will enable me to focus on questions that can not currently be addressed in the parent R01, will lead to the generation of new hypotheses, and will enable a more thorough investigation of gene variants in the dopamine reward pathway. The additional data will be added to the data collected in the parent R01 to develop quantitative multivariate risk assessment models for psychosocial, contextual, and genetic susceptibility to identify high-risk adolescent subgroups. These findings will enable us in the longer term to develop more effective, culturally appropriate school- and community-based interventions to promote healthier lifestyles. Recently I have been recommended for promotion to Assistant Professor. I am confident that the net effect of the promotion and obtaining this fellowship will launch my career in cancer prevention.