Latest News
Across the country, it’s becoming clearer every day: We must study the health of women. We must study the influence of sex-and-gender differences on health. And it’s time for all aspects of medical research and practice to embrace this change.
- April 24, 2019
Chronic alcohol abuse is considered to be an important risk factor for disease worldwide. In addition, alcohol and its metabolite, acetaldehyde, are recognized as carcinogens that contribute to four percent of cancer deaths. Although scientific studies began to show this association over 100 years ago, the role of alcohol in chronic diseases such as cancer is still not well understood by the public and medical professionals. The 4th International Conference on Alcohol and Cancer was organized by Vasilis Vasiliou, PhD, the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Epidemiology, sponsored by the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Yale School of Public Health, and supported by an R13 grant from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The conference, held in Newport, R.I., brought together 75 international scholars with special interest in alcohol and/or cancer.
- December 10, 2018
A new technology called metabolomics allows researchers to explore the small chemicals formed and used during digestion as a window into the formation of diseases such as colon cancer, seeking early warning signs and potent tactics for prevention.
- September 28, 2018
In the past decade, the list of cancers clearly associated with obesity or excessive weight has been growing: breast, kidney, uterine, pancreatic, colorectal, and esophageal cancers all are linked to obesity.
- February 09, 2018
Through the combination of genomics and metabolomics research, scientists are getting closer to understanding the impact of environmental exposure and lifestyle on disease onset. This recently designated "exposotype" (which takes into account genomic and metabolic data) is a new tool researchers can potentially use to refine and revolutionize current thinking about precision medicine and risk assessment.
- December 08, 2017
The exposome is defined as “the totality of environmental exposures encountered from birth to death” and was developed to address the need for comprehensive environmental exposure assessment to better understand disease etiology.
- December 01, 2017
In our recent publication, we demonstrate the utility of a metabolomics exposure assessment workflow to aid in the analysis of the exposome. The exposome, first proposed in 2005 as the totality of environmental exposures encountered from birth to death, was conceived to address the pressing need for innovative methodological developments in exposure assessment, to better understand the link between causality and disease. It is a highly interdisciplinary approach which requires biomonitoring for a vast variety of external and internal exposures, assessments of biological response, and bioinformatics to integrate and analyze the different kinds of datasets.
- November 13, 2017
Although women are less likely to develop colon cancer than men, they have higher rates of right-sided colon cancer, which is linked to worse outcomes since it is close in proximity to the small intestine. Colorectal cancer results in more than 50,000 people each year, and is a leading cause of death for both sexes. While this cancer is avoidable through a healthy diet, many Americans develop this cancer each year. A new study being conducted by the Yale Cancer Center suggests that digestion differences could result in sex disparities for colon cancer, according to a press release.
- October 24, 2017
Diagnostic imaging techniques have been around in health care clinics for decades, helping researchers to improve the life of millions. But imaging has now entered a new phase with mass spectrometry.
- October 20, 2017
Dr. Caroline Helen Johnson received this year’s Wendy U. and Thomas C. Naratil Pioneer Award and co-funding from the Yale Cancer Center to explore hormones and environmental factors related to metabolite production (such as sugars and amino acids) and beneficial bacteria that live in the colon as possible sources of gender difference.
