SPOTLIGHT ON DR. REGINA SANTELLA

Dr. Regina M. Santella is Professor of Environmental Health Sciences (Columbia University) and Director of the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. Her laboratory has developed sensitive immunologic methods for determining human exposure to environmental and dietary carcinogens by measurement of their binding to a critical target, the cell’s DNA. These assays have been used in numerous studies to investigate cancer risk related to environmental exposures as well as genetic susceptibility related to metabolism of these carcinogens and repair of damaged DNA.

Most studies have concentrated on measuring the DNA adducts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), common pollutants produced by the burning of any organic material including cigarettes, fossil fuels and hamburgers. Using these methods, they determined that cigarette smokers, foundry and coke oven workers, and individuals living in highly polluted regions had higher levels of PAH-DNA damage than those with lower exposures. In a chemoprevention study, a mixture of antioxidant vitamins (C, E and beta-carotene) was administered to smokers to determine whether it would protect them from PAH-DNA and oxidative DNA damage. While the results indicated that DNA damage decreased in both those on vitamin and placebo, they suggest that individuals may be able to modulate their risk.

In studies being carried out in Taiwan, a cohort contributed blood and urine samples in the early 1990s and is being followed for the development of liver cancer. In case-control biomarker studies nested within this cohort, they demonstrated that elevated exposure to aflatoxin B1, a mold contaminant of certain foods, including corn and peanuts, predicted risk for cancer development. In those subjects with both chronic hepatitis B virus infection and aflatoxin exposure, risk was about 70-fold higher compared to those negative for both. They have also demonstrated that certain polymorphisms in genes involved in the detoxification of the reactive intermediates of aflatoxin also increase risk. These studies demonstrate the importance of the interaction between exposure and genetic susceptibility.

Dr. Santella has served on the Metabolic Pathology Study Section. She chairs the Molecular Epidemiology Subcommittee of the Southwest Oncology Group and is on the steering committees of SWOG's Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial and SELECT, the new trial using selenium and vitamin E (see more information on the SELECT trial here) . She is also Chair of the Molecular Epidemiology Working Group of American Association for Cancer Research.