Integrative Research Centers
McGraw/Patterson Center for Population Sciences
Jane Weeks, MD, MSc, with Kasisomayajula (Vish) Viswanath, PhD, and Elana Stoffel, MD, MPH, Sapna Syngal, MD, Rinaa Punglia, MD, and Steven Joffe, MD, MPH The McGraw/Patterson Center for Population Sciences seeks to
define optimal approaches to the prevention and treatment of
cancer, and disseminate these interventions to populations at
large. Toward this end, the Center focuses on three major themes:
identifying cancer risk, reducing health disparities, and promoting
public health, particularly among high-risk and underserved
populations. The Center also connects faculty from Dana-Farber and
affiliated institutions who are interested in population sciences
research. Based in a single location at Dana-Farber, the Center
promotes collaboration with laboratory scientists and clinical
researchers across disease centers and institutions to bridge
knowledge gaps, share methodologic expertise, and stimulate
translational science. Training the next generation of
cancer-focused population scientists is another core part of the
Center's mission.
One major initiative of the Center is leadership of the
Institute's Cohort Studies of Patients with Cancer. This consortium
of disease-specific studies enrolls patients receiving their care
at Dana-Farber and follows them over time, generating a rich
resource of risk-factor, clinical and outcome data, as well as
annotated specimens that can be used by population science,
clinical, and translational investigators.