Nicholas Birkett
Associate Professor
School of Epidemiology and Public Health
University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine
Canada
Biography
Dr. Birkett is an Associate Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. He is also an Investigator in the Institute of Population Health. Dr. Birkett received an M.D from McMaster University and an M.Sc. in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McMaster University. He taught for three years as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Western Ontario, for five year in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University and for one year in the Department of Anaesthesia at the University of Toronto. In 1988, he moved to the University of Ottawa as an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine. In 2001-2, he spent eight months on sabbatical leave at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto working on laboratory molecular biology methods in cancer etiology. Dr. Birkett's interests are in the molecular epidemiology of cancer. His current research is exploring the role of dietary heterocyclic amines in the etiology of esophageal and prostate adenocarcinoma. These projects combine interview methods to estimate intake with laboratory methods to estimate individual susceptibility factors involved with metabolism and carcinogen activation (eg. CYP1A2, NAT2 and GSTA1). This work also explores the role of DNA repair systems in mediating risk (eg. XPD and XRCC1). Additional interests relate to mechanisms of carcinogenesis which might be influenced by dietary exposures (eg. microsatellite instability), molecular changes in dysplastic lesions of the esophagus and the role of duodenal reflux in the development of precursor lesions of esophageal adenocarcinoma. He also is involved with the statistical analysis of cancer etiological studies and microarray expression studies. Dr. Birkett is currently a member of the executive committee of the Canadian Cancer Etiology Research Network. He undertakes expert reviews for various grant review committees (eg. the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Cancer Institute of Canada, and the Alberta Medical Heritage Research Foundation) and journals (eg. the American Journal fo Epidemiology, International Journal of Cancer).
Research Interest
Health Research, health care
