Titles and Affiliations
Professor, Department of Epidemiology
Mailman School of Public Health
Research area
Developing better risk prediction models by incorporating biomarkers of environmental exposures, genetic susceptibility, and non-genetic alterations to DNA.
Impact
Environmental chemicals such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloro-ethane (DDT) cause DNA damage that can lead to cancer. The severity of the damage and the ability to repair it influences the risk for development of breast cancer. Women with an already high risk of breast cancer, due to inherited factors or strong family history, may be more vulnerable to environmental pollutant exposure. Previous studies include investigating how environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility—specifically as it relates to the ability to repair DNA damage—are related to breast cancer risk. Using the data from two established registries of high-risk families, Dr. Terry and Dr. Hui-Chen have examined the impact of environmental exposures in young girls. Their work is particularly relevant as breast cancer incidence rates are rising in women under 50. They found that this increase cannot be explained by changes in fertility patterns, suggesting that environmental factors may be contributing in ways we do not yet fully understand. Understanding which factors matter, when they matter, and for whom they matter is critical for preventing early onset breast cancer. Drs. Terry and Wu are identifying those environmental chemicals that contribute to breast cancer risk and uncovering early biological markers that can guide prevention, screening, and policy in this population.
Progress Thus Far
Most research has measured environmental chemical exposures outside key “windows of susceptibility,” such as puberty, pregnancy, and menopause, when the breast undergoes major biological changes. So, these studies often produce inconsistent or null findings. Drs. Terry and Wu found that when exposures are measured during these critical windows, the links to breast cancer risk become stronger and more consistent. They are taking a deeper dive into this finding.
What’s next
In the coming year, the team will employ high resolution mass spectrometry to measure more than 1,000 environmental chemicals in biological samples—this technology detects a broad range of known and suspected carcinogens. They will then link these chemical profiles to participants’ breast density measurements. Breast density will be measured by optical spectroscopy—a non-invasive tool refined by the team over the past decade to evaluate how exposures shape breast tissue composition at different life stages. Their comprehensive analyses could yield robust and reliable biomarkers that are critically needed to improve risk assessment, diagnostic routines, and clinical outcomes for high-risk patients with breast cancer.
Biography
Mary Beth Terry, PhD, is a Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She focuses her research on breast cancer and in the molecular epidemiology and life-course methods of the disease, in particular. She is a cancer epidemiologist with over 15 years of leading studies of breast cancer etiology specifically focused on the role genetics, epigenetics, and other biomarkers play in modifying the effects of environmental exposures.
Dr. Terry currently leads four NIH grants through the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences that focus on following cancer risk within family-based cohorts. Her more recent work studying biomarkers, which can be modified throughout life, supports the assertion that selected markers of DNA methylation and other biomarkers are associated with breast cancer risk even within high risk families. Understanding whether biomarkers can help explain risk in higher risk women is important, as only a minority of women with a family history of cancer carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. Her work also focuses on measuring risk factors for mammographic density, a strong intermediate marker of breast cancer.
In addition to her doctorate in epidemiology from Columbia University, Dr. Terry has a Master’s degree in economics and previously worked as an econometrician and program evaluator for a number of government-sponsored programs. Dr. Terry teaches introductory and advanced epidemiologic methods at the Mailman School of Public Health.
