Brenda M. Birmann, Sc.D.

Assistant Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Associate Epidemiologist, Channing Division of Network Medicine Department of Medicine, Brigham And Women's Hospital

“It is a tremendous honor to be chosen for the prestigious Young Investigator Award from the Lymphoma Foundation of America. I am grateful for the recognition of my early research on the epidemiology of lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and for the encouragement to continue my efforts to characterize risk factors that may be applicable to strategies for the prevention of these diverse malignancies.

“My interest in the causes of cancer originated early, when two seemingly healthy childhood friends were diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Later, family friends were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and my own father succumbed to multiple myeloma. Thus, the epidemiology and prevention of those cancers were already an interest when I began my graduate training in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. My doctoral and post-doctoral training with Dr. Nancy Mueller provided the opportunity to develop expertise on immunity- and infection-related risk factors for Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“I was fortunate to also join the International Lymphoma Epidemiology (InterLymph) Consortium and International Multiple Myeloma Consortium (IMMC), within which I had opportunities to collaborate with epidemiologists, immunologists and pathologists on pooled studies of lifestyle, infectious and immunity-related risk factors for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Those multi-disciplinary collaborative experiences provided valuable additional mentorship and learning opportunities, and have nurtured a deep conviction that pooled studies are crucial to identify risk factors for relatively rare cancers like multiple myeloma or individual histologic subtypes of lymphoma.

“In my position in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, I have the privilege of working with Drs. Graham Colditz, Edward Giovannucci, Francine Laden and Shumin Zhang to develop new prospective studies on the etiology of multiple myeloma and lymphoma in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study cohorts. My current projects examine lifestyle correlates of energy balance, including obesity, physical activity, and diet as potentially modifiable risk factors for lymphoma or multiple myeloma. I am also conducting biomarker-based studies to more directly evaluate the potential etiologic roles of several biologic pathways.

“In keeping with my enthusiasm for collaboration, I remain active in InterLymph and the IMMC, represent our cohorts in several collaborative initiatives and help to facilitate the Lymphoid Malignancies Working Group in the NCI Cohort Consortium. I am also privileged to collaborate with Dr. Kenneth Anderson and colleagues in the SPORE in Multiple Myeloma on additional studies of genetic susceptibility to multiple myeloma. I am eager to understand how potentially modifiable lifestyle and environmental risk factors relate to biologic pathways with known or plausible roles in lymphomagenesis, and whether those inter-relationships differ by histologic subtype of lymphoma. Ultimately, I hope to contribute insights that will inform the development of strategies for the prevention of lymphoma and multiple myeloma.