Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor
Dean, Population and Precision Health
Director, Institute for Population and Precision Health
Director, Chicago Center for Health and Environment
Associate Director of Population Research, Comprehensive Cancer Center
I am Dean for Population and Precision Health and Director of the Institute for Population and Precision Health. Trained in medicine, epidemiology, environmental health and genomics, my research expertise encompasses large-scale population-based studies assessing environmental disease risks and their modifying factors including social, biological and other disparity-related factors. My research interests focus on studying the inter-relationships between environmental and genomic factors in cancer and other diseases and exploiting information on these relationships at a population level in developing and evaluating prevention interventions in humans. Specifically, my research integrates the environmental, nutritional and life-style factors with measures of host factors and modern molecular genomics (involving DNA, RNA and protein variations) to understand the etiology, pathogenesis, prognosis and prevention of cancer and other disorders of national and international public health significance. In addition to applied and translational studies, my research directly addresses environmental health disparity and their prevention avenues. Findings from many of my environmental health studies have had EHS policy implications nationally and internationally. Currently, I lead the only NIEHS-funded Environmental Health Core Center in Chicago. I am leading a large team of scientists to establish a prospective multiethnic cohort in Chicago involving extensive environmental data and a biobank to address health disparity related research questions. As part of these responsibilities, I have built multidisciplinary multi-institutional teams, promoted collaborations, mentored junior and mid-level faculties, and managed large staff and budgets. I serve on numerous national and international panels including a current 4-year term on the NIEHS Advisory Board and a 3-year term on an NAS panel evaluating EPA policy on arsenic.
Columbia University
New York
Postdoc - Epidemiology
1995
University of Western Australia
Australia
MMedSc - Epidemiology
1992
University of Western Australia
Australia
PGDip - Public Health
1990
Institute for Postgraduate Medicine & Research, Dhaka University
Bangladesh
MBBS(MD) - Medicine
1988
Reproductive factors and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer: results from the Asia Cohort Consortium.
Reproductive factors and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer: results from the Asia Cohort Consortium. Br J Cancer. 2024 Dec 20.
PMID: 39706987
Association between family history with lung cancer incidence and mortality risk in the Asia Cohort Consortium.
Association between family history with lung cancer incidence and mortality risk in the Asia Cohort Consortium. Int J Cancer. 2025 Feb 15; 156(4):723-733.
PMID: 39361428
Household air pollution disparities between socioeconomic groups in Chicago.
Household air pollution disparities between socioeconomic groups in Chicago. Environ Res Commun. 2024 Sep 01; 6(9):091002.
PMID: 39238838
Meat consumption and incident type 2 diabetes: an individual-participant federated meta-analysis of 1·97 million adults with 100?000 incident cases from 31 cohorts in 20 countries.
Meat consumption and incident type 2 diabetes: an individual-participant federated meta-analysis of 1·97 million adults with 100?000 incident cases from 31 cohorts in 20 countries. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2024 Sep; 12(9):619-630.
PMID: 39174161
Differing associations of PM2.5 exposure with systolic and diastolic blood pressures across exposure durations in a predominantly non-Hispanic Black cohort.
Differing associations of PM2.5 exposure with systolic and diastolic blood pressures across exposure durations in a predominantly non-Hispanic Black cohort. Sci Rep. 2024 08 31; 14(1):20256.
PMID: 39217205
Contextual Deprivation, Race and Ethnicity, and Income in Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease.
Contextual Deprivation, Race and Ethnicity, and Income in Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Aug 01; 7(8):e2429137.
PMID: 39158908
Body Mass Index and Risk of Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Asia.
Body Mass Index and Risk of Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Asia. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Aug 01; 7(8):e2429494.
PMID: 39196559
Association of KRAS Mutation and Gene Pathways in Colorectal Carcinoma: A Transcriptome- and Methylome-Wide Study and Potential Implications for Therapy.
Association of KRAS Mutation and Gene Pathways in Colorectal Carcinoma: A Transcriptome- and Methylome-Wide Study and Potential Implications for Therapy. Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Jul 25; 25(15).
PMID: 39125664
Exposure to metal mixtures and telomere length in Bangladeshi children.
Exposure to metal mixtures and telomere length in Bangladeshi children. Am J Epidemiol. 2024 Jul 05.
PMID: 38973734
Molecular Profiling and the Interaction of Somatic Mutations with Transcriptomic Profiles in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC) in a Population Exposed to Arsenic.
Molecular Profiling and the Interaction of Somatic Mutations with Transcriptomic Profiles in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC) in a Population Exposed to Arsenic. Cells. 2024 Jun 18; 13(12).
PMID: 38920684
Member
ASCO Annual Meeting Planning Committee
2015 - 2017
Member
NAEHSC-National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council (NIEHS Council)
2015 - 2019
Member
NAS Scientific Panel on Toxicological Assessment of Arsenic
2012 - 2016
Associate Editor
Genetic Epidemiology
2006 - 2011