DALE P. SANDLER

Dr. Sandler is Deputy Chief of the Epidemiology Branch and Chief of the Environmental and Molecular Epidemiology Section at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH.  She also is Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on environmental causes of chronic disease in adults. Recently completed and ongoing work includes studies of risk factors for leukemia and myelodysplasia, health effects of residential and occupational exposure to radon, and the health consequences of exposure to agricultural chemicals. 

Previous work included some of the earliest studies on cancer and heart disease risk associated with environmental tobacco smoke and one of the first population-based studies of risk factors for chronic kidney disease.  The leukemia study was the first epidemiological study of an adult cancer carried out in the context of a cooperative cancer treatment group.  The study included patients who were enrolled in chemotherapeutic clinical trials sponsored by Cancer and Leukemia Group B, a cooperative cancer treatment group involving medical centers throughout the US. Because patients were enrolled and interviewed at the time they were randomized to treatment protocols, the time between diagnosis and study was often less than a few weeks.  Based on the notion that the leukemias are heterogeneous with regard to tumor biology and prognosis, and that this heterogeneity may extend to risk factors, the study was the first to explore the roles of clonal chromosome abnormalities detected in the bone marrow of patients, oncogenes, and polymorphisms in genes that affect the metabolism of potential carcinogens.  

Dr. Sandler is collaborating with investigators from the National Cancer Institute and the US Environmental Protection Agency to carry out The Agricultural Health Study, a prospective study of over 57,000 licensed pesticide applicators and 35,000 of their spouses. This study is examining a number of health endpoints in addition to cancer incidence and mortality and is becoming a resource for targeted studies of specific agricultural exposures or specific diseases such as Parkinson's disease, for which there is some evidence of risk associated with agricultural exposures but few opportunities for identifying exposed individuals.  Finally, groundwork is being laid for establishing a novel cohort of sisters of women who have had breast cancer.  This higher risk group of women will be followed over time to identify both genetic and environmental factors associated with increased risk for breast cancer and other diseases.  Further information on these and other studies can be found at the website below.

In addition to her research, Dr. Sandler serves on the advisory boards for several extramural research projects, as a reviewer for grant applications to the NIH and the State of California's Tobacco-related Disease Research Program, and as a member of the Data Committee of the Southeastern Kidney Council.  She is a Fellow of the ACE and was elected to membership in the American Epidemiological Society in 1999.  Dr. Sandler is an Editor for the American Journal of Epidemiology, is on the Editorial Review Board of Environmental Health Perspectives, and will become an Editor of Epidemiology in March 2001.