Margaret R. Wrensch, PhD
Stanley D. Lewis and Virginia S. Lewis Endowed Chair in Brain Tumor Research, UCSF
Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery, UCSF
Stanley D. Lewis and Virginia S. Lewis Endowed Chair in Brain Tumor Research, UCSF
Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery, UCSF
I became a UCSF faculty member in Epidemiology and Biostatistics in 1985 and joined the Department of Neurological Surgery in 2004. I am PI/co-PI of one of the first large-scale population based epidemiologic studies of adult glioma which I began in 1991. This was funded continuously through 2016 by an NCI R01 and from 2002-2018 by a project in the UCSF Brain Tumor SPORE. These two funding sources created the ongoing Adult Glioma Study created which is a large, unique data and specimen resource for etiologic and outcome studies of adult glioma. In 2009, we completed one of the first genome-wide association studies of adult glioma in which we identified several glioma risk loci. In 2012, we discovered a glioma risk allele that confers a six-fold risk of oligodendroglial tumors and IDH mutated astrocytomas. In 2015, we published another study in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic that defined five glioma molecular groups based on 1p/19q co-deletion, IDH mutation, and mutations in the TERT promoter that appear to have distinct mechanisms of pathogenesis and that account for over 95% of grade II-IV gliomas.
We currently are in the process of conducting large-scale longitudinal studies of immune profiles in both high and lower grade gliomas with funding from NCI and the loglio collective. In addition, I have been a co-investigator for other multi-site studies of glioma risk and of familial glioma risk, genetic epidemiology of lung cancer, and breast cancer epidemiology. I am a leader in the brain tumor epidemiology research community having served as US Co-President of the Brain Tumor Epidemiology Consortium. I received the Society of Neuro-oncology Lifetime Achievment award in 2016. My service to the NIH includes participation in numerous review panels over my 30+year career, including having served as a member on the EPIC-CASE study section.
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, B.Sc., 1971, Genetics
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, M.Sc., 1973, Population Genetics
University of California, Berkeley, CA, M.P.H., 1977, Epidemiology
University of California, Berkeley, CA, Ph.D., 1983, Epidemiology