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Chaoran Ma
Nutritional epidemiology; cancer epidemiology; genetic and tissue-based biomarkers; multi-omics data; neurodegeneration
Contact details
Contact
Location
Arnold House
715 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01003
United States
About
My research focuses on understanding age-related chronic complex diseases, especially cancer and neurodegeneration, and how modifiable risk factors, including diet and behavioral factors, affect the disease processes. My work uses nutritional and molecular epidemiological approaches integrating multiomics (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics) data and artificial intelligence technique. Recently, I expanded my focus to the gut microbiome and its interaction with diet on diseases. My goals are both to understand how the complex interplay of genetic, metabolic, and the gut microbial factors affect the variability of individuals’ responses to dietary intakes, and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the roles of dietary and behavioral factors in etiology, progression, and survival of age-related chronic diseases. The ability to identify useful biomarkers and individuals at high risk for age-related diseases would provide new opportunities for early intervention, and thus could have a substantial impact on advancing precision health.