Vanja Dukic is an expert in computational statistics and mathematical epidemiology who works as a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research includes work on using internet search engine access patterns to track diseases, [1] [2] and on the effects of climate change on the spread of diseases.
Dukic earned a bachelor's degree in finance and actuarial mathematics from Bryant University in 1995. [3] She completed her doctorate at Brown University in 2001, under the joint supervision of biostatisticians Constantine Gatsonis and Joseph Hogan. [4] She worked as a faculty member in the biostatistics program of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago from 2001 to 2010, before moving to Colorado. [3]
In 2015 she was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association "for important contributions to Bayesian modeling of complex processes and analysis of Big Data, substantive and collaborative research in infectious diseases and climate change, and service to the profession, including excellence in editorial work." [5] [6]
Hot flashes are a form of flushing, often caused by the changing hormone levels that are characteristic of menopause. They are typically experienced as a feeling of intense heat with sweating and rapid heartbeat, and may typically last from two to 30 minutes for each occurrence.
The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) was a series of clinical studies initiated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1991, to address major health issues causing morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women. It consisted of three clinical trials (CT) and an observational study (OS). In particular, randomized controlled trials were designed and funded that addressed cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.
Adjuvant therapy, also known as adjunct therapy, adjuvant care, or augmentation therapy, is a therapy that is given in addition to the primary or initial therapy to maximize its effectiveness. The surgeries and complex treatment regimens used in cancer therapy have led the term to be used mainly to describe adjuvant cancer treatments. An example of such adjuvant therapy is the additional treatment usually given after surgery where all detectable disease has been removed, but where there remains a statistical risk of relapse due to the presence of undetected disease. If known disease is left behind following surgery, then further treatment is not technically adjuvant.
A cancer survivor is a person with cancer of any type who is still living. Whether a person becomes a survivor at the time of diagnosis or after completing treatment, whether people who are actively dying are considered survivors, and whether healthy friends and family members of the cancer patient are also considered survivors, varies from group to group. Some people who have been diagnosed with cancer reject the term survivor or disagree with some definitions of it.
Alternative cancer treatment describes any cancer treatment or practice that is not part of the conventional standard of cancer care. These include special diets and exercises, chemicals, herbs, devices, and manual procedures. Most alternative cancer treatments do not have high-quality evidence supporting their use and many have been described as fundamentally pseudoscientific. Concerns have been raised about the safety of some purported treatments and some have been found unsafe in clinical trials. Despite this, many untested and disproven treatments are used around the world.
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), also known as intraductal carcinoma, is a pre-cancerous or non-invasive cancerous lesion of the breast. DCIS is classified as Stage 0. It rarely produces symptoms or a breast lump one can feel, typically being detected through screening mammography. It has been diagnosed in a significant percentage of men.
Sarah C. Darby is Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of Oxford. Her research has focused the beneficial effects of smoking cessation, the risk of lung cancer from residential radon, and treatments for early breast cancer. She is also a Principal Scientist with the Cancer Research UK in the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU) and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.
David Haussler is an American bioinformatician known for his work leading the team that assembled the first human genome sequence in the race to complete the Human Genome Project and subsequently for comparative genome analysis that deepens understanding the molecular function and evolution of the genome.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. Effects of menopause can include symptoms such as hot flashes, accelerated skin aging, vaginal dryness, decreased muscle mass, and complications such as osteoporosis, sexual dysfunction, and vaginal atrophy. They are mostly caused by low levels of female sex hormones that occur during menopause.
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an oncologist. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (ónkos), meaning "tumor", "volume" or "mass". Oncology is concerned with:
Marvin Zelen was Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), and Lemuel Shattuck Research Professor of Statistical Science. During the 1980s, Zelen chaired HSPH's Department of Biostatistics. Among colleagues in the field of statistics, he was widely known as a leader who shaped the discipline of biostatistics. He "transformed clinical trial research into a statistically sophisticated branch of medical research."
Joan S. Brugge is the Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professor of Cell Biology and the Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard Medical School, where she also served as the Chair of the Department of Cell Biology from 2004 to 2014. Her research focuses on cancer biology, and she has been recognized for her explorations into the Rous sarcoma virus, extracellular matrix adhesion, and epithelial tumor progression in breast cancer.
Kathleen I. Pritchard, is the head of oncology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, specializing in breast cancer therapies, and leading the clinical trials division of the centre. She has authored numerous studies on women's health, breast cancer, hormone replacement therapy, public health, and research methodology. According to Thomson Reuters, Pritchard was one of the most cited researchers in the world in 2014 and 2015.
Alice Segers Whittemore is an American epidemiologist and biostatistician who studies the effects of genetics and lifestyle on cancer, after an earlier career as a pure mathematician studying group theory. She works as a professor of health research and policy and of biomedical data science at Stanford University, and has served as president of the International Biometric Society.
Katrina Miranda is an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Arizona. She works on nitric oxide and their role in diseases like breast cancer, stroke and chronic pain.
Amanda Randles is an American computer scientist who is the Alfred Winborne and Victoria Stover Mordecai Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at Duke University. Randles is an associate professor of biomedical engineering with secondary appointments in computer science, mathematics, and mechanical engineering and materials science. She is a member of the Duke Cancer Institute. Her research interests include biomedical simulation, machine learning, computational fluid dynamics, and high-performance computing.
Serena Nik-Zainal is a British-Malaysian clinician who is a consultant in clinical genetics and Cancer Research UK advanced clinician scientist at the University of Cambridge. She makes use of genomics for clinical applications. She was awarded the Crick Lecture by the Royal Society in 2021. Serena Nik-Zainal was also recognized as one of the 100 Influential Women in Oncology by OncoDaily.
Beth Ann Overmoyer is an American physician and oncologist. She is Director of the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute.
Karen Canfell is an Australian epidemiologist and cancer researcher.
Christina Curtis is an American scientist who is a Professor of Medicine, Genetics and Biomedical Data Science and an Endowed Scholar at Stanford University where her research investigates the evolution of tumors. She is director of Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Genomics at Stanford University School of Medicine and is on the board of directors of the American Association for Cancer Research.