Dr. Cook is currently working on female hormonally-related cancers, namely ovarian, endometrial and breast cancer. Dr. Cook is the PI of a large National Institutes of Health multi-year grant investigating the mitochondrial DNA differences in several hundred women with and without ovarian cancer with her colleagues at UNM and in Canada. These genetic differences in the mitochondrial DNA could provide the basis for a screening test or possibly even a drug intervention. Other investigations using this resource include candidate SNP studies and novel risk factors for ovarian cancer (vitamin D/sunlight and herbicide exposures). She is also active in the international Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC). Dr. Cook has completed an endometrial cancer tissue study and is currently investigating risk factors in women with microsatellite stable and microsatellite instable endometrial cancer. She is also investigating the underlying reasons for survival differences in Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic whites following an endometrial cancer diagnosis. She is a member of the international Epidemiology of Endometrial Cancer Consortium (E2C2). She is also the UNM PI on two projects in a NIH P50 grant with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. The goal of this P50 project is to investigate and reduce breast cancer disparities between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women. She is particularly interested in the investigation of the occurrence and the subtypes of the aggressive forms of breast cancer in Hispanic women. Dr. Cook is also interested in developing a molecular epidemiology graduate training program at UNM.
Contact
full name
LindaSCook
mailing address
Division of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Preventive Medicine, DoIM MSC10-5550, 1 University of New Mexico