Roxana Moslehi, Ph.D. is a genetic epidemiologist. Most of her research is dedicated to the study of cancer and cancer precursors. Born in Iran and raised in Canada, she is currently an assistant professor [9] in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the State University of New York (SUNY), where she has developed multiple courses related to genetic and molecular epidemiology and genomics-based public health and medicine. Through her research she has been contributing to the understanding of hereditary causes of diseases as well as the influence of gene-environment interactions on the risk of developing disease.
Contents |
Roxana received her B.Sc. with honors, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Following her Ph.D., she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) under the supervision of Dr. Mitchell Gail. While being a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH, she also received an adjunct assistant professor position at George Washington University (GWU), where she developed a course entitled "controversies in cancer epidemiology" with Dr. Paul Levine.
Working with Drs. Steven Narod and J.M. Friedman, she was first to estimate the penetrance of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations for breast, ovarian and other cancers in a study of Jewish women with ovarian cancer,[1] now the most studied hereditary cancer predisposing genes in the human genome. In 2009, Roxana proposed the possibility of positive selection for BRCA mutations and conducted the first study into the impact of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes on female fertility as a potential mechanism influencing positive selection for BRCA mutations [2]. She has also made significant contributions to research on modifiers of breast and ovarian cancer risk [3] as well as research on other cancers such as Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma [4] and on cancer precursors, such as colorectal adenoma[5][6][7]. Most recently, Roxana developed the hypothesis of the involvement of trichothiodystrophy (TTD) genes in normal human placental development based on her novel clinical observations in TTD families[8].
Roxana Moslehi is a recipient of multiple awards and honors, including the Award for Excellence in Teaching (UBC), a Biovision Fellowship from Académie des Sciences (France), two Awards for Research Excellence from the NIH, and the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2010 from School of Public Health at SUNY.