Colditz to be honored for cancer prevention efforts​

Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, a disease-prevention expert at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will receive the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)–American Cancer Society Award.

Colditz

The award will be presented June 1 during ASCO’s annual meeting in Chicago. As part of the honor, Colditz will give a lecture about cancer prevention and control.

“It is an honor to be recognized for the advances in cancer prevention that our prevention and control team is working toward here in St. Louis,” he said.

Colditz is an internationally recognized leader in cancer prevention. As an epidemiologist and public health expert, he has a longstanding interest in preventing cancer and chronic diseases, particularly among women. He also is interested in strategies to speed basic research discoveries into prevention efforts that help to reduce disease rates.

His past research has focused on the health effects of smoking, weight and weight gain, physical activity and diet. He also developed Your Disease Risk, an online tool that assesses a person’s risk of major diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke and offers personalized advice for prevention.

Colditz came to the School of Medicine in 2006 from Harvard University, where he worked on the Nurses’ Health Study, one of the largest and longest running studies of women’s health. At Washington University, he also is the Niess-Gain Professor of Surgery and a professor of medicine; chief of the Division of Public Health Sciences in the Department of Surgery; deputy director of the Institute for Public Health at the School of Medicine; and associate director of prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center.

In 2011, Colditz received the American Cancer Society’s highest award, the Medal of Honor, for his dedication to leading research that focuses on the prevention of chronic diseases and cancer.


Washington University School of Medicine’s 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient-care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

Siteman Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Missouri, is ranked among the top cancer facilities in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Comprising the cancer research, prevention and treatment programs of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine​, Siteman also is Missouri’s only member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.