Sara Lindstroem, PhD

Dr. Sara Lindstroem is a genetic epidemiologist whose research focuses on identifying genetic and environmental risk factors for common diseases, specifically breast and prostate cancer. She is also interested in statistical methods used in genetic epidemiology, mainly in population-based case-control studies. Dr. Lindstroem studies the shared genetic origin of common cancers such as breast, colorectal, lung, ovarian and prostate tumors. Together, these five cancers represent more than half of all newly diagnosed cancer cases in the U.S. Her goal is to identify global biological mechanisms that underlie the development and progression of these malignancies. She is also interested in the genetics that underlie childhood obesity, breast-tissue composition and venous thromboembolism, or deep-vein blood clots. Dr. Lindstroem co-led a global genome-wide association study that found 72 new genetic risk factors for breast cancer, nearly doubling the number of known genetic variants that influence risk of the disease.