Anna Wu, PhD

Professor Emerita

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Overview

Dr. Wu’s research focuses on the epidemiology of cancer with emphasis on understanding the increase of various (e.g., breast, ovarian, colon) cancers among Asian migrants to the US. A unifying theme of my research is to identify modifiable lifestyle and environmental factors to reduce the risk of specific cancers and to improve outcomes among those diagnosed with cancer. In addition to observational epidemiologic studies, I have conducted a series of controlled intervention studies to investigate the short-term effects of dietary (e.g., soy, green tea) and hormonal (e.g., oral contraceptives) agents on breast-tissue (e.g., mammographic density) and circulating sex hormones and other biomarkers.
Since 2014, I began to use the well-established Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) to address research questions on environmental exposures (e.g., air pollution, endocrine disrupting chemicals) that have been challenging to study. In addition, I am participating in two multicenter survivorship studies on breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

Education and Training

  • University of California, Los Angeles — PhD — 1983 — Epidemiology

Publications

  • Shared heritability and functional enrichment across six solid cancers. Nat Commun. 2019 01 25; 10(1):431.. View in PubMed
  • A comprehensive gene-environment interaction analysis in Ovarian Cancer using genome-wide significant common variants. Int J Cancer. 2019 05 01; 144(9):2192-2205.. View in PubMed
  • Evaluation of Medicare Claims Data as a Tool to Identify Dementia. J Alzheimers Dis. 2019; 67(2):769-778.. View in PubMed
  • Genetic Data from Nearly 63,000 Women of European Descent Predicts DNA Methylation Biomarkers and Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk. Cancer Res. 2019 02 01; 79(3):505-517.. View in PubMed
  • Discovery of common and rare genetic risk variants for colorectal cancer. Nat Genet. 2019 01; 51(1):76-87.. View in PubMed
  • Growth factor genes and change in mammographic density after stopping combined hormone therapy in the California Teachers Study. BMC Cancer. 2018 Nov 06; 18(1):1072.. View in PubMed
  • Long-Term Ambient Temperature and Externalizing Behaviors in Adolescents. Am J Epidemiol. 2018 09 01; 187(9):1931-1941.. View in PubMed
  • rs495139 in the TYMS-ENOSF1 Region and Risk of Ovarian Carcinoma of Mucinous Histology. Int J Mol Sci. 2018 08 21; 19(9).. View in PubMed
  • A Transcriptome-Wide Association Study Among 97,898 Women to Identify Candidate Susceptibility Genes for Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk. Cancer Res. 2018 09 15; 78(18):5419-5430.. View in PubMed
  • Variants in genes encoding small GTPases and association with epithelial ovarian cancer susceptibility. PLoS One. 2018; 13(7):e0197561.. View in PubMed