Melanoma Prevention: Using the Sun

描述(由申请者提供)：这份名为《黑色素瘤预防：利用阳光》的申请意在推进和发展贝里克博士的职业目标。这些都是三重的。 (1)持续的目标：开展有助于了解和消除黑色素瘤发病率和死亡率的研究。在耶鲁大学接受免疫学、暴露评估和流行病学培训后，Berwick博士开始了一项系统的研究议程，专注于一种非常可以预防的疾病--黑色素瘤的癌症预防范围。目前的研究主要集中在基因与环境的相互作用以及影响黑色素瘤患者生存的重要因素。 (2)作为K05支持的结果：将年轻的博士后、博士后和教职员工培养成多产的科学家。贝里克博士的研究项目为初级调查人员的新研究提供了一个极好的平台。新举措的例子包括探索阳光和维生素D与维生素D受体及其途径的相互作用效应，免疫因素和荷尔蒙对黑色素瘤病因和生存的影响。她成功指导的悠久历史清楚地表明，贝里克博士在促进新一代癌症预防科学家的学术发展方面拥有领导技能，这些科学家接受过研究遗传学和暴露与癌症风险的关系的培训。这项奖励将通过解放贝里克博士的部分行政责任，为扩大这一指导角色提供时间。Berwick博士目前是担任高级指导角色的理想人选，因为在获得该奖项时，除了她的主要研究外，所有支持这一提议的研究都将完成或移交给初级研究人员，从而留出40%的新时间和精力用于新的研究和指导。 (3)作为K05支持的结果：对Berwick博士的研究技能和方向的持续增长和完善做出贡献：通过了解癌症的病因和开发适当的、针对地区的干预措施，影响新墨西哥州癌症健康方面的差异。在新墨西哥州开展以人群为基础的病例对照研究的新举措，将提供对该州主要族裔人群：拉美裔、非拉美裔白人和美洲原住民中存在的癌症发病率、存活率和死亡率的新差异和模式的重要理解。贝里克博士在人口调查和分子流行病学方面的丰富经验将为这些新研究提供便利。 这些目标将通过Marianne Berwick博士开发的强大的指导计划来实现，通过利用现有的博士和博士后计划以及开发新的博士和博士后职位来改善指导和培训基础设施，并通过更彻底地检查通过外部资金收集的现有和新的黑色素瘤病因学、进展和病因学数据来实现。 这些目标是通过Berwick博士24年来指导年轻教员并研究太阳暴露在皮肤恶性黑色素瘤发生和发展中的作用而制定的。贝里克博士的目标--了解和消除黑色素瘤的发病率和死亡率--反映了到2015年消除癌症痛苦和死亡的国家癌症优先事项。NCI将开展和支持基础、临床和人口研究，以更全面地了解癌症的遗传、表观遗传、环境、行为和社会文化决定因素，以及癌症耐药性、易感性、启动、退化、进展和复发的生物学机制。NCI明确指出，预防必须基于在人口和实验室工作的综合人口科学小组开发的知识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 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.