Gabriel Lai, Ph.D.

Supervisory Health Scientist Administrator
Division of Integrative Biological and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Gabriel Lai serves as a Supervisory Health Scientist Administrator (Program Officer) and the Team Lead for the Integrative Biological and Environmental Sciences Team. His work focuses on promoting research to understand and address biological and environmental factors that contribute to health disparities in areas including cancer, chronic diseases, obesity, diabetes, microbiome, and exposome.

Previously, he was a program director in the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program at the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, where he managed a research portfolio and developed initiatives on a spectrum of modifiable factors and environmental exposures associated with cancer. Dr. Lai served as a point of contact for several scientific areas and initiatives, including epidemiologic research on emerging risk factors and liver cancer susceptibility, basic and translational research on adducts in cancer risk, methodologic research on the microbiome in epidemiologic studies, environmental exposure assessment, and the trans-NIH Human Health Exposure Analysis Research program. He has helped organize workshops on data harmonization, nutrition and physical activity epidemiology, human microbiome and health, and cancer systems epidemiology.

He earned his B.A. in both psychology and molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and later joined the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program at NCI. As a fellow, he conducted research in the former Nutritional Epidemiology Branch (now known as the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch) within NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.

Selected Publications

• Elena J. W., Gallicchio, L., Pottinger, C. A., Akif, K. E., Hanisch, R., Kennedy, A. E., Lai, G. Y., Mahabir, S., Martin, D. N., Srinivasan, S., Yu, C.T., & Lam, T. K. (2023). Cancer epidemiology in Hispanic populations: An analysis of funded observational research at the National Cancer Institute. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention, 32(5), 653-658. https://doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-22-0815.
• Ammons, S., Aja, H., Ghazarian, A. A., Lai, G. Y., Ellison, G. L. (2022). Perception of worry of harm from air pollution: results from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). BMC Public Health, 22(1),1254. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35752789/.
• Barajas, R., Hair, B., Lai, G., Rotunno, M., Shams-White, M. M., Gillanders, E. M., Mechanic, L. E. (2021). Facilitating cancer systems epidemiology research. PLoS One, 16(12). https://doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0255328.
• Ghazarian, A.A., Simonds, N. I., Lai, G. Y., Mechanic, L. E. (2021). Opportunities for Gene and Environment Research in Cancer: An Updated Review of NCI's Extramural Grant Portfolio. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention, 30(3), 576-583. https://doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-20-1264.
• Sinha, R., Ahsan, H., Blaser, M., Caporaso, J. G., Carmical, J. R., Chan, A. T., Fodor, A., Gail, M. H., Harris, C. C., Helzlsouer, K., Huttenhower, C., Knight, R., Kong, H. H., Lai, G. Y., Hutchinson, D. L. S., Le, Marchand, L., Li, H., Orlich, M. J., Shi, J., Truelove, A., Verma, M., Vogtmann., E., White, O., Willett, W., Zheng, W., Mahabir, S., Abnet, C. (2018). Next steps in studying the human microbiome and health in prospective studies, Bethesda, MD, May 16-17, 2017. Microbiome, 6(1), 210. https://doi:10.1186/s40168-018-0596-z.
• Lai, G. Y., Wang, J. B., Weinstein, S. J., Parisi, D., Horst, R. L., Taylor, P. R., McGlynn, K. A., Mannisto, S., Albanes, D., Freedman, N. D. (2018). Association of 25-hydroxyvitamin D with liver cancer incidence and chronic liver disease mortality in a cohort of Finnish men. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention, 27(9), 1075-1082. https://doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-17-0877.

Page published March 29, 2024