Brock C Christensen, PhD
Title(s)
Professor of Epidemiology
Professor of Community and Family Medicine
Professor of Molecular and Systems Biology
Department(s)
Epidemiology
Community and Family Medicine
Molecular and Systems Biology
Education
Harvard University, Ph.D. 2008
University of Wisconsin - Madison, B.S. 2002
Programs
Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine
Quantitative Biomedical Sciences
Contact Information
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
660 Williamson Translation Research Building
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
Lebanon NH 03756
Office: 660 Williamson
Phone: 603-650-1827
Fax: 603-650-1129
Email: Brock.Christensen@Dartmouth.edu
Professional Interests
Dr. Christensen's research is focused on combining advances in molecular biology, genomics and bioinformatics with the powerful techniques of modern epidemiology and statistics to characterize epigenetic states in human health and disease. His interests include understanding relationships between epigenetic states and exposures in the context of disease susceptibility, occurrence, and progression. By investigating complex interactions between the environment and somatic epigenetic alterations in target tissues, as well as epigenetic susceptibility traits in surrogate tissues, he hopes to develop their potential translational utility for diagnostic, prognostic, and/or treatment purposes.
Courses Taught
PEMM103 Introductory Applied Biostatistics with R (Course director)
Biography
Dr. Christensen received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin Madison in Medical Microbiology & Immunology and French in 2002, and his Ph.D. from the Program in Biological Sciences in Public Health at Harvard University in 2008. He trained as a postdoctoral research associate in molecular epidemiology of cancer at Brown University in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Dr. Christensen joined the faculty at Dartmouth in 2011 as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Community and Family Medicine in the Section of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, and Pharmacology and Toxicology.
Extensive epigenomic dysregulation is a hallmark of homologous recombination deficiency in triple-negative breast cancer. Insights to aging prediction with AI based epigenetic clocks. Methylation cytometric pretreatment blood immune profiles with tumor mutation burden as prognostic indicators for survival outcomes in head and neck cancer patients on anti-PD-1 therapy. Immunomethylomic profiles of long-term head and neck squamous cell carcinoma survivors on immune checkpoint inhibitors. Associations in cell type-specific hydroxymethylation and transcriptional alterations of pediatric central nervous system tumors. Identifying tumor type and cell type-specific gene expression alterations in pediatric central nervous system tumors. Alteration of DNA methyltransferases by eribulin elicits broad DNA methylation changes with potential therapeutic implications for triple-negative breast cancer. Matched analysis of detailed peripheral blood and tumor immune microenvironment profiles in bladder cancer. Tumor microenvironment deconvolution identifies cell-type-independent aberrant DNA methylation and gene expression in prostate cancer. Detailed immune profiling in pediatric Crohn's disease using methylation cytometry. |
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