Cancer Genomics

Biography

Mukesh Verma is Chief of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program's (EGRP) Methods and Technologies Branch (MTB), and oversees its research portfolio and initiatives that focus on methods to address epidemiologic data collection, study design and analysis, and to modify technological approaches developed in the context of other research endeavors for use as biomarkers and methods to understand cancer susceptibility. He is responsible for stimulating EGRP-funded research on epigenetic approaches in cancer epidemiology and has been instrumental in developing epigenetics research for NIH as a whole. Dr. Verma helped to develop a Request for Applications (RFA) on Environmental Influences on Epigenetics with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and represents the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), in NIH's Roadmap Initiative on EpigeneticsExternal Web Site Policy. He helped develop an RFA on Comparative Systems Genetics of Cancer with NCI's Division of Cancer Biology (DCB), and is known within the extramural research community as an EGRP Program Director for Program Announcements (PAs) on Small Grants for Cancer Epidemiology and Pilot Studies in Pancreatic Cancer. He also organized a workshop to explore developing a concept for a research initiative on mitochondrial DNA and cancer epidemiology. Dr. Verma was, and continues to be, a co-Program Director for initiatives in gene-environment interactions in cancer etiology, including the Breast and Prostate Cancer and Hormone-Related Variants Cohort Consortium (BPC3), which is a collaborative project to pool data and biospecimens from a group of large prospective cancer epidemiology cohorts. Dr. Verma joined EGRP as a Program Director in 2004. In 2005, he was appointed Acting Chief of EGRP's former Analytic Epidemiology Research Branch (AERB). When EGRP reorganized in 2007, he was appointed Acting Chief of MTB and of the Host Susceptibility Factors Branch (HSFB), for which he served as Acting Chief through 2008. Before joining EGRP, he was a Program Director in NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP), where he worked in the areas of biomarkers, early detection, risk assessment, and prevention. He also was Coordinator of DCP's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs. He was on the faculty in the Biochemistry Department of Georgetown University before joining NIH.

Research Interest

Biomarkers, epigenetics, epidemiology technologies, proteomics, microRNA, methylation, mitochondria, nanotechnology, risk assessment, susceptibility factors, and systems genetics.