Maria Pena
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Colorectal cancer in people under 50, called early onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC), has been rising for four decades. It is predicted to increase by 140% by 2030.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
early onset colorectal cancer
antibiotics
early-life exposure
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Identify developmental windows, from before birth through childhood, when exposure to commonly prescribed pediatric antibiotics most increases colorectal cancer risk, using mouse models of colorectal cancer.
- Test whether dysbiosis, an unbalanced gut microbiome caused by early-life antibiotics, drives early onset colorectal cancer in mouse models.
- Determine which gut microbes promote early onset colorectal cancer and whether they act by increasing mutations in the colon.
- Test whether early antibiotic exposure produces a "toxic colon" marked by inflammation and altered gene activity that sets the stage for tumors.
More about the research
In the US, it is now the second most common cancer and third leading cause of cancer death in this age group. The PI's team has proposed that environmental exposures that spread worldwide alongside this rise may drive it. These exposures affect the colon's main defenses: inflammation control, the gut microbiome (the community of gut microbes), and genetic and epigenetic stability. Many such exposures happen in childhood.
Why it matters
Doctors cannot yet say which children who receive antibiotics will later face a higher risk of early onset colorectal cancer. Knowing the vulnerable life stages and the microbes involved could help identify high-risk people and design ways to lower their risk. It could also guide how to offset harms when antibiotics are truly needed to fight infection. These findings could lay groundwork for studying the human gut microbes that raise risk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Wendy S. Garrett
Harvard University, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether hydrogen sulfide made by Fusobacterium nucleatum, a gas-phase bacterial metabolite, alters colon lining cells and immune cells in the developing tumor environment, using preclinical mouse models of colorectal cancer.
Wan Yang
Columbia University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify key environmental and lifestyle risk factors for early-onset colorectal, thyroid and kidney cancer in adults under 50, using mechanistic models combined with data assimilation and national cancer and exposure data.
Michael Zuscik
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether the obese, dysbiotic gut microbiome causes osteoarthritis by starting an inflammatory cascade that begins in the colon, spreads through the blood to the joint, and accelerates cartilage degeneration.
The school
University of South Carolina-Columbia: 22 labs on PI Pages, $277M a year on research, 425 research doctorates a year.
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