people:
over fifty scientists and one goal...
Sally Thurston, Ph.D. (Leader, Biostatistics Core) Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Dr. Thurston received her Ph.D. in Statistics from Harvard University and came to Rochester in 2002 after a postdoctoral fellow in Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health. Her work has been motivated by problems in environmental and occupational health. This includes a focus on measurement of error bias, which occurs when a proxy version of a covariate, such as chemical exposure, is used in place of the "gold standard" exposure in an outcome model. She has expertise in Bayesian approaches to correct for measurement error bias, with particular emphasis on development of statistical methods, which incorporate biomarkers and genetic information to improve estimates of cancer risk. Other areas of expertise include non-parametric smoothing in occupational epidemiology, exposure assessment, informative prior elicitation and specification, and gene-smoking interactions in lung cancer risk.
Recent Publications
Thurston
SW, Liu G, Miller DP, Christiani DC. Modeling lung cancer risk in case-control
studies using a new dose metric of smoking. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers
Prev. 2005 Oct;14(10):2296-302.
Eisen EA, Agalliu I, Thurston SW, Coull BA, Checkoway H. Smoothing in
occupational cohort studies: an illustration based on penalised splines.
Occup Environ Med. 2004 Oct;61(10):854-60. Review.
Ryan L, Huang W, Thurston SW, Kelsey KT, Wiencke JK, Christiani DC.
On the use of biomarkers for environmental health research. Stat Methods
Med Res. 2004 Jun;13(3):207-25.
Su L, Sai Y, Fan R, Thurston SW, Miller DP, Zhou W, Wain JC, Lynch TJ,
Liu G, Christiani DC. P53 (codon 72) and P21 (codon 31) polymorphisms
alter in vivo mRNA expression of p21. Lung Cancer. 2003 Jun;40(3):259-66.
Zhou W, Liu G, Miller DP, Thurston SW, Xu LL, Wain JC, Lynch TJ, Su
L, Christiani DC. Polymorphisms in the DNA repair genes XRCC1 and ERCC2,
smoking, and lung cancer risk. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2003
Apr;12(4):359-65.
Thurston SW, Eisen EA, Schwartz J. Smoothing in survival models: an
application to workers exposed to metalworking fluids. Epidemiology.
2002 Nov;13(6):685-92.
Zhou W, Liu G, Miller DP, Thurston SW, Xu LL, Wain JC, Lynch TJ, Su
L, Christiani DC. Gene-environment interaction for the ERCC2 polymorphisms
and cumulative cigarette smoking exposure in lung cancer. Cancer Res.
2002 Mar 1;62(5):1377-81.
Zhou W, Liu G, Thurston SW, Xu LL, Miller DP, Wain JC, Lynch TJ, Su
L, Christiani DC. Genetic polymorphisms in N-acetyltransferase-2 and
microsomal epoxide hydrolase, cumulative cigarette smoking, and lung
cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2002 Jan;11(1):15-21.
Liu G, Miller DP, Zhou W, Thurston SW, Fan R, Xu LL, Lynch TJ, Wain
JC, Su L, Christiani DC. Differential association of the codon 72 p53
and GSTM1 polymorphisms on histological subtype of non-small cell lung
carcinoma. Cancer Res. 2001 Dec 15;61(24):8718-22.
Zhou W, Thurston SW, Liu G, Xu LL, Miller DP, Wain JC, Lynch TJ, Su
L, Christiani DC. The interaction between microsomal epoxide hydrolase
polymorphisms and cumulative cigarette smoking in different histological
subtypes of lung cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2001 May;10(5):461-6.
Xu LL, Wain JC, Miller DP, Thurston SW, Su L, Lynch TJ, Christiani DC.
The NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 gene polymorphism and lung cancer:
differential susceptibility based on smoking behavior. Cancer Epidemiol
Biomarkers Prev. 2001 Apr;10(4):303-9.
Thurston SW, Ryan L, Christiani DC, Snow R, Carlson J, You L, Cui S,
Ma G, Wang L, Huang Y, Xu X. Petrochemical exposure and menstrual disturbances.
Am J Ind Med. 2000 Nov;38(5):555-64.
Thurston SW, Wand MP, Wiencke JK. Negative binomial additive models.
Biometrics. 2000 Mar;56(1):139-44.
Wiencke JK, Thurston SW, Kelsey KT, Varkonyi A, Wain JC, Mark EJ, Christiani
DC. Early age at smoking initiation and tobacco carcinogen DNA damage
in the lung. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1999 Apr 7;91(7):614-9.
