About
Professor David Whiteman conducts research into cancers of the skin and gastrointestinal tract, and more recently in cancer control. To that end, he has pursued two parallel but complementary paths, focusing on discovering how environmental and genetic factors interact to cause cancer on the one hand, and then applying this knowledge to the prevention and control of disease on the other.
Professor Whiteman leads the QSkin Study, the world’s largest prospective study of skin cancer with almost 44,000 participants. This cohort is measuring absolute and relative risks for basal and squamous cell carcinomas (BCC and SCC) and melanoma associated with phenotypic, lifestyle, clinical, and environmental factors, from which to build novel, valid decision tools for doctors and patients. The cohort is also measuring the impacts of protective behaviours and estimating the burden (mortality, costs, etc.) of skin cancer in Australia. In 2013, he was awarded a $3.4 million NHMRC project grant to collect DNA samples from 19,000 QSkin participants and perform a genome-wide association study – one of the largest studies of its type ever conducted in Australia.
He also studies oesophageal cancer, and its premalignant precursor, Barrett’s oesophagus. These investigations continue through rewarding collaborations with national (PROBE-NET consortium) and international (BEACON consortium) investigators.
More recently, Professor Whiteman has taken a broader interest in cancer control, using the data generated from epidemiological studies to develop estimates of cancer burden with a view to informing health policy. This work was commissioned originally by Cancer Council Australia, and has now expanded into a new program of work.
Area of Interest
Professor Whiteman’s research career has been largely devoted to the field of cancer control, particularly for cancers of the skin and recently, the oesophagus.