EGRP News Flash - January 11, 2008
Reid and Verma Appointed EGRP Branch Chiefs
NCI’s Epidemiology
and Genetics Research Program (EGRP) has two new Branch Chiefs. Britt
Reid, D.D.S., Ph.D., has been named to head the Modifiable Risk Factors
Branch (MRFB) and Mukesh Verma, Ph.D., has been named to head the Methods
and Technologies Branch (MTB). These appointments are part of last year’s
reorganization of EGRP which included changing from a two-branch to
a four-branch structure.
Britt
Reid
D.D.S., Ph.D. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Reid practiced
clinical dentistry in Washington, DC, and as a Naval Officer in support
of the Fleet Marine Force in Japan. He received his D.D.S. from the University
of Michigan and Ph.D. in epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health.
MRFB focuses on supporting and stimulating research
on cancer factors that may be modifiable, such as diet and nutrition,
alcohol, physical activity and energy balance, tobacco, infectious diseases,
physical and chemical agents, and medical exposures.
Mukesh Verma
Ph.D. Dr. Verma is responsible
for developing EGRP’s initiative to stimulate research on epigenetic
approaches in cancer epidemiology and has been instrumental in developing
epigenetic research for NIH as a whole. He helped to develop a Request
for Applications (RFA) on Environmental Influences on Epigenetics with
the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and represents
the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), of which
EGRP is a part, in NIH’s Roadmap Initiative on epigenetics.
He
is known within the extramural research community as an EGRP Program
Director for Program Announcements (PAs) on Small Grants for Cancer Epidemiology
and Pilot Studies in Pancreatic Cancer, and is a co-Program Director
for initiatives in gene-environment interactions in cancer etiology.
He was, and continues to be, a co-Program Director for initiatives in
gene-environment interactions in cancer etiology, including the Breast
and Prostate Cancer and Hormone-Related Variants Cohort Consortium (BPC3),
which is a collaborative project to pool data and biospecimens from a
group of large prospective cancer epidemiology cohorts. He also organized
a workshop to explore developing a concept for a research initiative
on mitochondrial DNA and cancer epidemiology.
Before joining EGRP, Dr.
Verma was a Program Director in NCI’s Division of Cancer Prevention
(DCP), where he worked in the areas of biomarkers, early detection, risk
assessment, and prevention. He also was Coordinator of DCP’s
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology
Transfer (STTR) Programs.
Dr. Verma holds an M.Sc. from Pantnagar University,
a Ph.D. in the field of host-virus interaction from Banaras Hindu University,
and did postdoctoral research at George Washington University.
MTB focuses
on developing and improving methods for epidemiologic data collection,
study design, and analysis; on modifying approaches developed in the
context of other research endeavors for cancer epidemiologic settings;
and on methods to increase understanding of cancer susceptibility.
The Branch also manages EGRP’s SBIR/STTR Programs.
Additional information
about the reorganization is available at http://epi.grants.cancer.gov/reorganize.html.
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