Megan A. Clarke is an American cancer epidemiologist who researches

anogenital The perineum in humans is the space between the anus and scrotum in the male, or between the anus and the vulva in the female. The perineum is the region of the body between the pubic symphysis (pubic arch) and the coccyx (tail bone), includin ...

and endometrial cancers. She is a Stadtman investigator in the

clinical genetics Medical genetics is the branch tics in that human genetics is a field of scientific research that may or may not apply to medicine, while medical genetics refers to the application of genetics to medical care. For example, research on the caus ...

branch at the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

Life

Clarke was a postbaccalaureate fellow in the clinical genetics branch (CGB) at the

(NCI). She completed a M.H.S. in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

in 2010 and a Ph.D. in epidemiology in 2016, both from the

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. As the second independent, degree-granting institution for research in epi ...

. Her dissertation was titled, ''Early-life exposures and adult cancer risk: a life course approach to cancer prevention''. Corinne Joshu was her doctoral advisor. Clarke was a postdoctoral cancer prevention fellow at the CGB. Clark was promoted to research fellow in 2019 and was appointed as an Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator in 2020. She conducts research combining molecular, clinical, and population-based approaches to address etiology, prevention, and early detection of

and endometrial cancers, yielding results that inform natural history and clinical management and address cancer disparities. Clarke studies

cervical cancer Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix. It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Early on, typically no symptoms are seen. Later symptoms may include abnormal ...

disparities including race, ethnicity, and other factors such as obesity. She identified host gene and HPV

DNA methylation DNA methylation is a biological process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule. Methylation can change the activity of a DNA segment without changing the sequence. When located in a gene promoter, DNA methylation typically acts t ...

as potential

biomarkers In biomedical contexts, a biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurable indicator of some biological state or condition. Biomarkers are often measured and evaluated using blood, urine, or soft tissues to examine normal biological processes, p ...

for cervical carcinogenesis. Clarke collaborates with the NCI cancer genome research laboratory to develop a low-cost,

next-generation sequencing Massive parallel sequencing or massively parallel sequencing is any of several high-throughput approaches to DNA sequencing using the concept of massively parallel processing; it is also called next-generation sequencing (NGS) or second-generation s ...

methylation assay. She leads efforts to validate this assay in natural history studies and has designed a study (Selfie) for large-scale evaluation of methylation testing in self-collected samples.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Megan Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health alumni National Institutes of Health people Cancer epidemiologists American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists 21st-century American women scientists