# Characterizing genomic risk factors of lung cancers in Native Hawaiians

> **NIH NIH U54** · UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA · 2023 · $928,101

## Abstract

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in the United States and the leading cause of cancer-related
deaths. Significant disparities in incidence and outcome of lung cancer characterize the disease’s
manifestation among ethnically and racially diverse populations. It has been found that Native Hawaiians (NH),
Pacific Islanders (PI), and African Americans (AA) have the highest lung cancer risk and poorest survival
outcomes compared to other populations. The influence of race and ethnicity is more evident at relatively low
levels of smoking. After accounting for known lung cancer risk factors, NH and AAs remain at highest risk of
lung cancer.
 The cause of these significant lung cancer health disparities is undoubtedly multifactorial. However, an
unexplored factor is the molecular profiles of tumors arising in the NH/PI communities. In the past decade,
large-scale lung cancer genomic studies have found clear racial disparity for lung cancer driver mutation genes.
However, NHs have been strikingly underrepresented in The Cancer Genome Atlas Project (TCGA) and other
cancer genome projects. There are almost no NH lung cancer patients included in the previous projects. There
have also been no studies to compare DNA methylation changes between tumor and adjacent normal samples
from NH/PI lung cancer patients, despite the importance of understanding how DNA methylation changes
contribute to NH lung cancer development. To address the critical gap in lung cancer genomics studies and to
understand the key factors that contribute to the health disparity of NH/PI lung cancer patients, we propose the
following aims: 1. Characterize genomic landscape of lung cancer in NH patients. 2. Perform epigenomic
profiling of lung cancer tissues in NH patients. 3. Identify NH specific genomic and epigenomic risk factors of
lung cancer by comparing the profiles from NH with the published genomic and epigenomic data from other
racial/ethnic populations. This project has the potential to be translated into improved lung cancer screening,
precision prevention, and therapeutic intervention in NH and other populations. This project will also help us,
via the Genomic Workforce Development Core included in the overall proposal, to train students, researchers,
and community workers with genomics and genomic data science skills, such as whole genome sequencing
(WGS), whole exome sequencing (WES), Illumina DNA methylation microarray, and whole-genome bisulfite
sequencing (WGBS), as well as bioinformatics and data science skills related to the data analyses. The utility
of these fundamental genomic technologies, is very useful for conducting biomedical research in any human
diseases.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10749847
- **Project number:** 1U54HG013243-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA
- **Principal Investigator:** Youping Deng
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $928,101
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-09-15 → 2028-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10749847

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10749847, Characterizing genomic risk factors of lung cancers in Native Hawaiians (1U54HG013243-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10749847. Licensed CC0.

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