Mary Beth Terry, PhD

2009-2010 BCRF Project:
(made possible by generous support from Aveda)
Co-Investigator: Regina M. Santella, PhD, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York

The researchers at Columbia have demonstrated the importance of DNA repair capacity in breast cancer risk and that the effect of some environmental exposures is influenced by ability to repair DNA damage. They are extending this work to pathways that repair other types of DNA damage. They will use biospecimens and data from over 1,000 women, 500 of whom have breast cancer and over 500 sisters who do not have breast cancer to investigate two areas. First, they will expand their ongoing studies on the impact of a woman's ability to repair damaged DNA on her breast cancer risk. They have already demonstrated that ability to remove bulky chemicals bound to DNA and to repair double strand breaks influences risk and are currently generating data on the mismatch repair pathway. They will now genotype subjects to determine the relationship of genotype to risk and also whether it predicts phenotype. In other studies, they have data suggesting a positive association between lower levels of genomic DNA methylation and breast cancer risk and that certain risk factors impact on DNA methylation levels.

Mid-Year Progress Report:
The team at Columbia has been studying the efficiency of repair of different types of DNA damage and has now demonstrated that deficiencies in two different repair pathways impact on breast cancer risk. Risk increases with the number of pathways in which women have deficient repair capacity. Other studies are looking at changes in the normal pattern of one type of DNA modification (methylation) that controls gene expression. Initial studies suggest methylation is impacted by environmental factors and associated with risk. A recent pilot study also suggested that breast cancer risk factors may be associated with methylation in white blood cells in early life.

Bio:
Dr. Terry is an Associate Professor of Public Health. Dr. Terry is a cancer epidemiologist and has been involved in case-control studies of breast and colorectal cancer for over ten years. She is currently working on a New York cohort study to examine early life factors for breast cancer risk. Her research focuses on the study of intermediate markers in cancer including mammographic density and colorectal adenomas, gene-environmental interactions and cancer, and early life factors and breast cancer. She is an National Cancer Institute K07 recipient of a 5-year career development award studying early life factors and breast cancer risk and an American Cancer Society recipient of a 3-year grant to study alcohol metabolism, intake and breast cancer risk. She has several independent grants also focusing on early life factors and breast cancer risk including a large R01 grant and an idea award from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research program. Dr. Terry has taught both introductory and advanced epidemiologic methods at Columbia. She is currently teaching Epidemiology III.

Dr. Terry is also part of the CURE program at the Columbia Presbyterian Cancer Center to help mentor minority students in cancer research. While completing her doctoral degree, she also taught epidemiology and health economics for 3 years at New York University's Wagner School. Dr. Terry has a Masters degree in economics and previously worked as an econometrician and program evaluator for a number of government-sponsored programs.