EDUCATION

• Ph.D. (Public Health Genetics) 2008, University of Washington, Seattle
• M.S. (Genetic Epidemiology) 2004, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
• B.A. (Biology) 2002, Washington University, St. Louis 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology
• Breast and prostate cancer epidemiology
• The role of diabetes in cancer etiology
• Mendelian Randomization methods and applications
• Arsenic exposure and cancer risk
• Gene patents
  

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

• Pierce BL, Ahsan H. Clinical assessment incorporating a personal genome. Lancet. 2010 Sep 11;376(9744):869; author reply 869-70.
• Argos M, Kalra T, Pierce BL, Chen Y, Parvez F, Islam T, Ahmed A, Hasan R, Hasan K, Sarwar G, Levy D, Slavkovich V, Graziano JH, Rathouz PJ, Ahsan H. A Prospective Study of Arsenic Exposure From Drinking Water and Incidence of Skin Lesions in Bangladesh. Am J Epidemiol. 2011 Jul 15;174(2):185-94.
• Pierce, BL, Ahsan H. Genomewide “pleiotropy scan” identifies HNF1A region as a novel pancreatic cancer susceptibility locus. Cancer Res. 2011 Jul 1;71(13):4352-8.
• Pierce, BL, Ahsan H. Association study of type 2 diabetes genetic susceptibility variants and risk of pancreatic cancer: an analysis of PanScan-I data. Cancer Causes Control. 2011 Jun;22(6):877-83.
• Pierce BL, Argos M, Chen Y, Melkonian S, Parvez F, Islam T, Ahmed A, Hasan R, Graziano J, Rathouz PJ, Ahsan H.  Arsenic exposure, dietary patterns, and skin lesion risk in Bangladesh: A prospective study.  American Journal of Epidemiology (in press).
• Pierce BL, Ahsan H, Vanderweele TJ.  Power and instrument strength requirements for Mendelian randomization studies using multiple genetics variants.  International Journal of Epidemiology, 2010 [Epub ahead of print].
• Argos M, Kalra T, Rathhouz PJ, Chen Y, Pierce BL, Parvez F, Islam T, Ahmed A, Rakibuz-Zaman M Hasan R, Sarwar G, Slavkovich V, van Green A, Graziano J, Ahsan H.  Arsenic Exposure from drinking water, and all-cause and chronic-disease mortalities in Bangladesh (HEALS): a prospective cohort study.  The Lancet, 2010 June 19 [Epub ahead of print]
• Pierce BL and Ahsan H.  Genetic susceptibility to type 2 diabetes is associated with prostate cancer risk.  Human Heredity 2010, 69:193-201.
• Pierce BL, Kalra T, Argos M, Parvez F, Chen Y, Islam T, Ahmed A, Hasan R, Rakibuz-Zaman M, Graziano J, Rathouz PJ, Ahsan H.  A prospective study of body mass index and mortality in Bangladesh.  International Journal of Epidemiology, 2010 Aug;39(4):1037-45.
• Pierce BL and Ahsan H.  Case-only genome-wide interaction study of disease risk, prognosis, and treatment.  Genetic Epidemiology, 2010; 34(1):7-15.
• Pierce BL, Ballard-Barbash R, Bernstein L, Baumgartner RN, Neuhouser ML, Wener MH, Baumgartner KB, Gilliland FD, Sorensen BE, McTiernan, Ulrich CM.  Elevated biomarkers of inflammation are associated with reduced survival among breast cancer patients.  Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2009; 27(21):3437-44.
• Pierce BL, Carlson CS, Kuszler PC, Stanford JL, Austin MA.  The impact of patents on the development of genome-based clinical diagnostics: an analysis of case studies.  Genetics in Medicine, 2009; 11(3): 202-209.
• Pierce BL, Biggs ML, DeCambre M, Reiner AP, Li C, Fitzpatrick A, Carlson CS, Stanford JL, Austin MA.  C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, and prostate cancer risk in men aged 65 and older.  Cancer Causes and Control, 2009; 20(7):1193-203.
• Pierce BL, Neuhouser ML, Wener MH, Bernstein L, Baumgartner RN, Ballard-Barbash R, Gilliland FD, Baumgartner KB, Sorensen B, McTiernan A, Ulrich CM.  Correlates of circulating C-reactive protein and serum amyloid A in breast cancer survivors.  Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 2009, 114(1):155-67.