# DNA Methylation Profiles and Breast Cancer among WTC Survivors

> **NIH ALLCDC R21** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2022 · $253,814

## Abstract

The terrorist attacks and the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
resulted in the massive release of dust, gas, and fumes with potential exposure to known and
suspected carcinogens for thousands of individuals. Most of the research to date focused on
first-responders. However, the impact on the WTC disaster on the general population,
particularly on women’s health remains poorly understood.
The current application will focus on women as underrepresented group in previous WTC-
related studies. Increasing data demonstrates that epigenetic changes may serve as objective
markers of exposure to environmental chemicals. The current application will test the hypothesis
that complex WTC exposures resulted in distinct long-term DNA methylation changes
detectable many years after the original WTC exposure. The overarching objective of the project
is to validate DNA methylation profiles of the WTC-exposed breast cancer cases observed in
the pilot study using independent set of WTC-exposed and unexposed subjects.
Global DNA methylation will be assessed in peripheral white blood cells DNA using Illumina
Infinium MethylationEpic arrays which provide single-base methylation information for over
850,000 cytosine-phosphate-guanine sites throughout the human genome and is a
comprehensive solution for epigenome-wide association studies.
The project is expected to contribute to the understanding of the possible role of global DNA
methylation as objective marker of potentially carcinogenic exposures among WTC survivor
population, specifically women. The present proposal will address a knowledge gap on the
impact of WTC disaster among women survivors. If the results confirm a correlation between
WTC exposures and altered DNA methylation, it would lead to the development of novel
objective biomarkers that could be used for screening and early detection of breast cancer, the
most common cancer among WTC-exposed women.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10459198
- **Project number:** 5R21OH012238-02
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Alan A. Arslan
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $253,814
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-07-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10459198

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10459198, DNA Methylation Profiles and Breast Cancer among WTC Survivors (5R21OH012238-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10459198. Licensed CC0.

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