Dr. Prizment is a chronic disease epidemiologist who studies blood, tissue, and genetic biomarkers in cancer, dementia and other age-related diseases. Two main areas of Dr. Prizment’s research are: (1) inflammation and immune responses associated with cancer, with a main focus on gastrointestinal cancers in large observational studies and clinical trials; and (2) the role of biomarkers of aging in predicting chronic disease, particularly cancer risk and outcomes after cancer diagnosis. Dr. Prizment is a Principal Investigator of the NIH/NCI fNCI-fundedunded study on functional mutations in the CFTR (Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) gene in colorectal cancer. Recently, she has expanded her research into studying biological aging in cancer and other chronic diseases. Her NCI R01 and NIA R21 projects utilized a novel aging construct — a proteomic aging clock based on the SomaScan proteomic data of 5000 proteins in ARIC and validated its performance in Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). R01 examines proteomic aging clock as a predictor of cancer risk and mortality and frailty after cancer diagnosis, while R21 studies proteomic aging clock in relation to dementia risk and cognitive changes. Dr. Prizment is a member of the “Measures” core in the NIH-funded Cancer and Aging Research Group.
