Roxana Moslehi

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 associate professor in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), where she has been teaching multiple courses, including those she developed in genetic and molecular epidemiology. 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.

Education

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. under the mentorship of Drs. J.M. Friedman and Steven Narod, 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 a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH, she 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.

Research

The overarching theme of Roxana Moslehi's research has been identification and characterization of cancer susceptibility genes. Working with Drs. Steven Narod and J.M. Friedman, her study was among the 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] Roxana expanded her studies of breast and ovarian cancer to other populations, including those in the Middle East, some understudied at the time. For example, through collaboration with physicians in Iran, Dr. Moslehi conducted studies on Iranian hereditary breast and ovarian cancer families, which led to the discovery of a novel BRCA1 mutation.[2][3] Roxana has also made significant contributions to research on modifiers of BRCA-associated breast and ovarian cancer risk [4][5] as well as to the understanding of mechanistic and population genetic aspects of the BRCA genes, now the most studied hereditary cancer predisposing genes in the human genome. In one such study, she investigated the impact of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes on female fertility as a potential mechanism influencing positive selection for BRCA mutations.[6]

Roxana Moslehi's hypotheses extend beyond the BRCA genes to other cancer susceptibility genes and disorders. Recently, she published a series of studies on the adverse effects of abnormalities in DNA repair and transcription genes on human reproduction and development. Based on her novel clinical observations in trichothiodystrophy (TTD) families, Roxana developed the hypothesis that defects in the nucleotide excision repair and transcription genes have adverse effects on human fetal and placental development.[7] Subsequently, she proposed impairment of TFIIH-mediated function in transcription in placenta as one mechanism leading to gestational complications such as preeclampsia and highlighted the relevance of the fetal genotype and the exact genetic abnormality to this mechanism.[8][9][10] In addition to breast and ovarian cancer, Roxana has been conducting genetic and epidemiologic investigations of other cancer and cancer precursors, such as Colorectal adenoma,[11][12] Lung cancer[13] and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.[14] More recently, Dr. Moslehi was awarded a research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH to conduct a study to explore the link between autoimmune disorders and cancer, specifically Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[15]

Awards

Roxana Moslehi is a recipient of multiple awards and honors, including the Graduate Teaching Assistant 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 from School of Public Health at SUNY Albany.

References

  1. ↑ BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutation Analysis of 208 Ashkenazi Jewish Women with Ovarian Cancer
  2. ↑ Analysis of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in an Iranian family with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome
  3. ↑ BRCA Mutation Analysis in Iranian High-Risk Hereditary Breast Cancer Families (Article in Persian)
  4. ↑ Oral contraceptives and the risk of hereditary ovarian cancer. Hereditary Ovarian Cancer Clinical Study Group.
  5. ↑ Reproductive factors and ovarian cancer risk in Jewish BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (United States)
  6. ↑ Impact of BRCA Mutations on Female Fertility and Offspring Sex Ratio
  7. ↑ Adverse effects of trichothiodystrophy DNA repair and transcription gene disorder on human fetal development
  8. ↑ Phenotype-specific adverse effects of XPD mutations on human prenatal development implicate impairment of TFIIH-mediated functions in placenta
  9. ↑ Integrative transcriptome analysis reveals dysregulation of canonical cancer molecular pathways in placenta leading to preeclampsia
  10. ↑ Nucleotide Excision Repair/Transcription Gene Defects in the Fetus and Impaired TFIIH-Mediated Function in Transcription in Placenta Leading to Preeclampsia
  11. ↑ Cigarette smoking, N-acetyltransferase genes and the risk of advanced colorectal adenoma.
  12. ↑ Powerful Multilocus Tests of Genetic Association in the Presence of Gene-Gene and Gene-Environment Interactions.
  13. ↑ Haplotype-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms in the GSTP1 gene promoter and susceptibility to lung cancer.
  14. ↑ Rapidly Increasing Incidence of Ocular Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
  15. ↑ Roxana Moslehi awarded NIH grant for a study to explore the link between chronic fatigue syndrome and the risk of cancer
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