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
Short Tandem Repeat (STR) Somatic Mutation in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC): Association with Transcriptomic Profile and Potential Implications for Therapy.
Short Tandem Repeat (STR) Somatic Mutation in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC): Association with Transcriptomic Profile and Potential Implications for Therapy. Cancers (Basel). 2025 May 15; 17(10).
PMID: 40427167
Association Between Cardiometabolic Multimorbidity and 15-year Mortality in the Asia Cohort Consortium.
Association Between Cardiometabolic Multimorbidity and 15-year Mortality in the Asia Cohort Consortium. J Epidemiol. 2025 May 13.
PMID: 40368779
Improved Diagnosis of Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer in Resource-Limited Settings.
Improved Diagnosis of Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer in Resource-Limited Settings. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2025 Apr 27.
PMID: 40287980
Reproductive and Hormonal Factors and Thyroid Cancer Risk: Pooled Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies in the Asia Cohort Consortium.
Reproductive and Hormonal Factors and Thyroid Cancer Risk: Pooled Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies in the Asia Cohort Consortium. Cancer Prev Res (Phila). 2025 Apr 01; 18(4):209-221.
PMID: 39846314
Survival predictors of older cancer patients in Bangladesh: A multicenter study.
Survival predictors of older cancer patients in Bangladesh: A multicenter study. Cancer Epidemiol. 2025 Jun; 96:102794.
PMID: 40054414
Cancer Risk and Estimated Lithium Exposure in Drinking Groundwater in the US.
Cancer Risk and Estimated Lithium Exposure in Drinking Groundwater in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2025 Feb 03; 8(2):e2460854.
PMID: 39976965
Gene-Environment Interaction: Small Deletions (DELs) and Transcriptomic Profiles in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC) and Potential Implications for Therapy.
Gene-Environment Interaction: Small Deletions (DELs) and Transcriptomic Profiles in Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC) and Potential Implications for Therapy. Cells. 2025 01 10; 14(2).
PMID: 39851523
Exposure to metal mixtures and telomere length in Bangladeshi children.
Exposure to metal mixtures and telomere length in Bangladeshi children. Am J Epidemiol. 2025 Jan 08; 194(1):35-43.
PMID: 38973734
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. 2025 Mar; 132(4):361-370.
PMID: 39706987
An Assessment of Multipollutant Exposures Using Silicone Wristbands Among Bangladeshi Youth.
An Assessment of Multipollutant Exposures Using Silicone Wristbands Among Bangladeshi Youth. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024 Dec 18; 21(12).
PMID: 39767529
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