Principal Investigator: Timothy Church, Ph.D.

This population-based case/control study identified prostate cancer patients from the cancer registries in Minnesota and Wisconsin and a control group of healthy adults from those states' driver's license databases in order to examine biologic and occupational risk factors for the disease. Questionnaires and blood samples were used to collect data not only on lifestyle, dietary, and occupational risk factors, but also on family history, medical care utilization, genetic and genomic factors, and molecular markers. Initial analysis focuses on the interaction of occupational pesticide exposures with both genetic polymorphisms in hormonal pathways and loss of heterozygosity in genes related to DNA repair.