Tracy Layne, PhD, MPH
The Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute (BFWHRI) congratulates Tracy Layne, PhD, MPH, who was recently awarded the Schneider-Lesser Foundation Fellowship for Junior Faculty. The fellowship is intended to advance the chances of long-term success for promising junior faculty in the Investigator or Clinician-Educator Tracks at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Layne is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Population Health Science and Policy and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science as well as a faculty member of the Blavatnik Family of Women’s Health Research Institute.
Since joining the BFWHRI in December 2018, Dr. Layne has had the opportunity to join multiple projects, including a study examining whether there are treatment differences among Black and White women with advanced endometrial cancer. A cancer epidemiologist with a background and interest in the multifactorial and often interrelated drivers of racial and ethnic cancer disparities across the cancer continuum, Dr. Layne focuses on the etiology of disparities in endometrial and ovarian cancer risk and mortality. Her research centers on endometrial cancer and is aimed at understanding the elevated risk of aggressive disease among Black women and the contributors that make it the largest Black-White disparity in gynecologic mortality. A critical component of her work is collaborating with faculty across multiple disciplines and institutions on a range of clinical, epidemiological, and socioeconomic issues relevant to narrowing gaps in women’s health disparities research.
In 2020, five fellowships of $20,000 each were awarded to recipients that have demonstrated high impact research accomplishments and have strong potential for an independent scientific career. Dr. Layne will use her support from the Schneider-Lesser Foundation Fellowship for Junior Faculty to develop preliminary data that examines the relationship between vitamin D metabolism and endometrial cancer disparities between Black and White women.
“Black women are virtually missing from the preclinical and observational research examining the relationship between vitamin D activity and endometrial cancer,” says Dr. Layne. “This despite preclinical research suggesting that vitamin D metabolism is altered in endometrial cancer tissue and may be associated with aggressive disease. It is also notable given that Black women have well-established higher rates of both aggressive endometrial cancer and chronically lower circulating vitamin D concentrations compared to their White counterparts. With these factors in mind, this project will use next-generation sequencing to evaluate whether patterns of vitamin D activity, as measured by gene expression and genomic interaction, differs in bio-banked tissue from non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White women with endometrial cancer.”
We look forward to highlighting Dr. Layne’s research findings from this prestigious award in the coming months. Congratulations and well done, Dr. Layne!