Dr. Damali Martin
Program Director at Genomic Epidemiology Branch
Dr. Damali Martin is a Program Director in the Genomic Epidemiology Branch (GEB)—formerly the Host Susceptibility Factors Branch (HSFB)—of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program (EGRP) in NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). Dr. Martin’s responsibilities include managing a portfolio of grants related to the genetic etiology of cancers and subsequent health outcomes in underserved populations globally. She focuses on improving understanding of cancer disparities in the U.S. and internationally, particularly populations of African descent. She works collaboratively to implement EGRP’s activities related to the Sequencing Strategies for Population and Cancer Epidemiology Studies (SeqSPACE), Cancer Epidemiologic Research in Understudied Populations, and Infectious Agents and Cancer Epidemiology Research Webinar Series.
Dr. Martin is involved in numerous global health and international research activities and she is EGRP’s Global Health Coordinator. Dr. Martin is active in the National Institute of Health (NIH) Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth) program, serving as the U.S. Government collaborator to the Suriname GEOHealth Hub. She also serves as the scientific officer for the trans-NIH Human Heredity and Health in Africa Initiative (H3Africa) Dr. Martin is a member of the NIH Common Fund’s Global HealthImplementation team.
Dr. Martin is the EGRP liaison for several international research consortia in developing countries, including the Men of African Descent and Carcinoma of the Prostate Consortium(MADCaP), the Prostate Cancer Transatlantic Consortium (CaPTC), the African-American Breast Cancer Consortium (AABC), and the African-Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3). She serves as NCI’s program coordinator for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Caribbean Regional Cancer Registry Hub, under their Global Initiative for Cancer Registries in Developing Countries.
Before joining EGRP in 2008, Dr. Martin was a Cancer Prevention Fellow at NCI and worked in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. Her research examined molecular epidemiology and the biological determinants of cancer disparities in African Americans, with the goal of understanding mechanisms of the disease to identify targets for new prevention and treatment efforts. Dr. Martin’s research also focused on elucidating the differences in biology found with a higher prevalence in breast tumors from African-American women and whether they contribute to the lower survival and higher mortality observed among this group of women.
During her M.P.H. studies, Dr. Martin worked on the Jamaican Cervical Dysplasia project and examined human papillomavirus (HPV) viral load and its association with stage and grade of cervical neoplasia.