Polly Newcomb, PhD, MPH

Dr. Polly Newcomb is a cancer epidemiologist who focuses on cancer genetics, etiology, screening and survival. Her work, which has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for over 30 years, has advanced through many long-term collaborations, large, multi-site case-control studies, the establishment of cohorts and biorepositories, and participation with consortia such as the Colorectal Cancer Family Registry Cohort. Her focus on survival includes a study evaluating the molecular correlates of colon cancer outcomes in clinical trials. Dr. Newcomb has identified numerous new modifiable risk factors (and ways to calculate risk) for breast and colorectal cancer as well as environmental exposures that can impact patients' outcomes after cancer diagnosis. She also studies non-modifiable factors such as genes that may put people at a higher risk of cancer. Together this knowledge of modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors helps inform cancer-prevention studies at the population level as well as in the laboratory and clinic. Dr. Newcomb’s eminent career has made a lasting impact on what we know about cancer risk and survival.