Current Research Interests:

Dr. Bernstein's current research is focused on understanding the joint roles of environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility in the etiology of cancer. She is involved in etiologic and prognostic studies examining the roles of ATM, BRCA1/2, CHEK2 and other genes in related DNA repair pathways, and overexpression of p53 and HER-2/neu in breast cancer. The common goal of all of these projects is to identify women at highest risk because of gene carrier status, environmental exposures, or a combination of both. Dr. Bernstein is the PI of the multi-center population-based Women's Environmental Cancer and Radiation Epidemiology (WECARE) Study where 700 women with asynchronous bilateral breast cancer serve as cases and 1400 women with unilateral breast cancer serve as controls. As part of this study, a comprehensive epidemiologic and treatment information data and biologic specimen bank has been established that includes radiation dosimetry estimates for women who received radiation therapy as treatment for breast cancer. To date, several studies have been initiated that use this resource to examine the joint roles of radiation exposure and genetic predisposition in the etiology of breast cancer. Dr. Bernstein is also involved in projects developing and validating biomarkers of disease and is most interested in pursuing studies that explore the interactive effects of environmental factors and genetic susceptibility on rare cancer outcomes as they relate to the effect of treatment among long-term survivors of cancer and to survival.

Selected Bibliography:

1. Bernstein JL, Thompson W, Risch N, Holford T. Risk factors predicting the incidence of second primary breast cancer among women diagnosed with a first primary breast cancer.Am J Epidemiol 1992;136:925-36.

2. Bernstein JL, Thompson W, Risch N, Holford T. Survival following diagnosis of second primary breast cancer. Am J Epidemiol 1993;138:599.

3. Bernstein JL, Thompson WD, Casey G, DiCioccio RA, Whittemore AS, Diep AT, Thakore SS, Vaziri S, Xue S, Haile RW. Comparison of techniques for the successful detection of BRCA1 mutations in fixed paraffin-embedded tissue. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2002;11:809-14.

4. Bernstein JL, Teraoka S, Haile R, Børresen-Dale A, Rosenstein B, Gatti R, Diep A, Jansen L, Atencio D, Olsen J, Bernstein L, Teitelbaum S, Thompson WD, Concannon P, and the WECARE Study Collaborative Group. Designing and implementing quality control for multi-center screening of mutations in the ATM gene among women with breast cancer. Hum Mutat 2003;21:542-550.

5. Bernstein JL, Langholz BM, Haile RW, Bernstein L, Thomas DC, Stovall M, Malone KE, Lynch CF, Olsen JH, Anton-Culver H, Shore RE, Boice Jr. JD, Berkowitz GS, Gatti RA, Teitelbaum SL, Smith SA, Rosenstein BS, Borresen-Dale A, Concannon P, Thompson WD. Study design: evaluating gene-environment interactions in the etiology of breast cancer - the WECARE Study. Breast Cancer Res 2004; 6:R199-R214.