Martha J. Shrubsole, PhD

Martha J. Shrubsole, PhD, is Research Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she leads a research portfolio of molecular, nutritional, and interventional epidemiology.

A major focus of Dr. Shrubsole’s research is to understand the etiology of gastrointestinal neoplasia. She seeks to identify and evaluate modifiable factors, biomarkers, and molecular mechanisms for the prevention, early detection, and precision-based interception of cancer and its precursor lesions with emphasis on sessile serrated polyps and conventional colorectal adenomas. Some of these areas of study include nutrients such as one-carbon metabolism, inflammatory markers, gut microbiome, molecular landscape of colorectal polyps, and predictors of metachronous adenomas including in the NCI Moonshot Human Tumor Atlas Network.

She is also a PI of the Southern Community Cohort Study and the newly funded Southern Environmental Health Study, two large NCI-funded cohort studies seeking to understand and ameliorate cancer health disparities in the US South. In addition, Dr. Shrubsole has had leading roles in multiple randomized trials and other large-scale epidemiologic studies based in the US and globally.

Dr. Shrubsole also leads the International Epidemiology Field Station at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Vanderbilt Survey Research Shared Resource.