Jack Siemiatycki

Research

Title:
Professor

Institute:
Université de Montréal, CRCHUM

Department:
Social and Preventive Medicine

Province:
Quebec

Training:
Postdoctoral fellow, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France
PhD, Epidemiology, McGill University, Montreal, Que, Canada
MSc, Mathematics, McGill University, Montreal, Que, Canada
BSc, Mathematics, McGill University, Montreal, Que, Canada

Research interests:
epidemiology, environment, cancer

Recognitions and awards:
- Geoffrey R Howe Distinguished Contributions Award, Canadian Society for Epidemiology & Biostatistics, 2011.
- Invited Subgroup Chair. Evaluation of Carcinogenicity of Non-Ionizing Radiation, Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields. Monograph Programme. International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon May 2011.
- Chair, Advisory Committee to Consortium of large population cohorts. INSERM. France.
- Member, Advisory Committee. Occupational Cancer Research Centres of Ontario. 2009-2012.
- Member, Scientific Council. International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO). France 2005-2009

Career highlights:
1. Jack Siemiatycki pioneered a new methodology for conduction epidemiologic research on occupational causes of cancer. The methodology has been used and adapted around the world.
2. His team has produced and published results concerning the possible carcinogenicity of hundreds of occupational and environmental carcinogens. In aggregate the research findings of this team has been cited about 60 times in expert evaluations carried out by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
3. He participated in the international collaborative study on cellphones and brain cancer. The publication of this study was one of the most mediatised scientific articles of 2010.

Research Projects

Project 1:
Project title:
Determining the cancer risks associated with different aspects of our environment

Funding period:
2008-2018

Program:
The Guzzo Environment-Cancer Research Chair of the Cancer Research Society in partnership with the Université de Montréal

Summary:
The Chair, Dr Jack Siemiatycki, has a team of collaborators, research assistants and students. Together they are involved in a large number of research projects mainly on lung cancer; the current interests of the team are:
Alcohol and cancer:
The team will be determining if excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to excess risks of certain types of cancer, such as oesophageal, liver, stomach, colon and prostate cancer.
Lung cancer risks:
Lung cancer can certainly be caused by cigarette smoking, but there may be many other factors that can contribute to the initiation and promotion of lung tumours. The team will study if in women, hormonal characteristics might influence risk of lung cancer. The team will investigate whether exposure to lower levels of asbestos carries any detectable excess risk of lung cancer and of mesothelioma. They will also determine if women living near asbestos mines have an increased risk of such diseases. The team will determine the risk of lung cancer in painters in relation to some specific characteristics and exposures of painters, as well as such risk in workers exposed to diesel exhaust. The team will also investigate the risk associated with low exposure to metals such as Nickel, chromium VI, or cadmium.

Project 2:
Project title:
Development of an instrument for assessing occupational exposures in cancer case-control studies and its application to cancers of lung, brain and ovary

Funding period:
2011-2016

Program:
GRePEC

Summary:
The first stage in cancer prevention is to discover the modifiable causes of cancer. One of the most fruitful domains for discovering such causes has been the occupational environment. But the discoveries of carcinogens made in the workplace (eg. asbestos, radon gas, formaldehyde) may be very relevant to the general population since most agents in workplaces can also be found in the general environment or in consumer products, sometimes at exposure levels exceeding those in the workplace. Our team has played a major role in such research using a method that has allowed us to accumulate a great deal of information on occupational exposures in different occupations. We intend to configure this large database of occupations and exposures in such a way as to facilitate its use by other Investigators around the world for the purpose of enhancing their capacity to discover occupational causes of cancer. We will then apply this new tool to three datasets corresponding to three sites of cancer: lung, brain, and ovary. This will produce a wealth of new knowledge about possible causes of cancer.

CRS publications:

Koushik, A, Parent M.-É, Siemiatycki J. (2009) Characteristics of menstruation and pregnancy and the risk of lung cancer in women. International Journal of Cancer 125(10): 2428-2433.

*Ramanakumar, A. V, Parent M.-É, Richardson L. Siemiatycki J. (2011) Exposures in painting related occupations and risk of lung cancer among men: results from two case-control studies in Montreal. Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 68(1): 44-51 On line September 4 2010

*Benedetti, A, Parent M.-É, Siemiatycki J.(2009). Lifetime consumption of alcoholic beverages and risk of 13 types of cancer in men: Results from a case-control study in Montreal. Cancer Detection & Prevention 32(5-6): 352-362.

*Pintos, J, Parent M.-E, Case B.W, Rousseau M.-C, Siemiatycki J. (2009) Risk of mesothelioma and occupational exposure to asbestos and man-made vitreous fibres; evidence from two case-control studies in Montreal, Canada. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine 51(10):1177-1184.

*Momoli F, Siemiatycki J, Parent M-É, Abrahamowicz M. Semi-Bayes models: An empirical comparison of modeling approaches in a study of lung cancer and occupational chemicals. Joint Meeting of the Canadian Society for Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Society for Epidemiologic Research, Toronto, June 2005.

El-Zein, M, Parent M.-É, Kâ K, Siemiatycki J, St-Pierre Y, Rousseau M.-C. (2010) History of asthma or eczema and cancer risk among men: a population-based case-control study in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Annals of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology 104(5): 378-384.

*Vida, S, Pintos J, Parent M.-E, J. Lavoue J, Siemiatycki J (2010). Occupational exposure to silica and lung cancer: pooled analysis of two case-control studies in Montreal, Canada. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 19(6): 1602-11.

* Beveridge, R., Pintos J, Parent M.-E, Asselin J, Siemiatycki J. (2010) Lung cancer risk associated with occupational exposure to nickel, chromium VI, and cadmium in two population-based case-control studies in Montreal. /American Journal of Industrial Medicine/ 53(5): 476-485.

The INTERPHONE Study Group (2010). Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study. International Journal of Epidemiology 39(3): 675-694.

Baan R and the IARC Monograph Working Group. (2011). Carcinogenicity of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. The Lancet Oncology 12(7): 624-626.

Cardis E, Armstrong B.K, Bowman J.D, Richardson L et al. Risk of brain tumours in relation to estimated RF dose from mobile phones : results from five Interphone countries. Occup Environ Med 2011 : 631-640.

Matukala Nkosi T, Parent M.-É, Siemiatycki J, Pintos J, Rousseau M.-C. Comparison of indicators of material circumstances in the context of an epidemiological study. BMC Medical Research Methodology. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/11/108.

Peters S. Vermeulen R, Olsson, A, Lavoué J. et al. Development of an Exposure Measurement Database on Five Lung Carcinogens (ExpoSYN) for Quantitative Retrospective Occupational Exposure Assessment. Ann. Occp. Hyg.: 2011: 1-10.

Olsson A.C., Gustavsson P, Kromhout H, Siemiatycki J, et al. Pooled Analyses on Diesel Motor Exhaust and Lung Cancer in Europe and Canada. Poster presentation. 29th ICOH International Congress on Occupational Health, Cape Town, South Africa, March 2009.

Peters S, Vermeulen R, Olsson A, Lavoué J, et al. Modelling of occupational respirable crystalline silica exposure for quantitative exposure assessment in community-based case-control studies. Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 2011.

Parent M.-É, Rousseau M-C, El-Zein M, Latreille B, Désy M, Siemiatycki J. Occupational and recreational physical activity during adult life, and the risk of cancer among men. Cancer Epidemiology 35 (2011) 151-159.