OU Public Health | Fall 2018 10 W hat if unraveling the mystery surrounding in- creased tobacco use and lung cancer rates in American Indians boiled down to something as simple as studying your ABCs? OU Hudson College of Public Health alumna Dana Mowls Carroll, Ph.D., M.P.H. believes that’s exactly what it may take. However, the ABC’s she is studying are a bit more complicat- ed. For Mowls Carroll, A stands for the addictive properties of tobacco based upon how fast a person’s body metabolizes nicotine. B is for biology as she measures specific biological markers of tobacco exposure; and C is for the cancer-causing processes within the body that may lead to a greater risk for lung cancer in American Indian smokers. “Smoking is highest among American Indians relative to other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, especial- ly among American Indians in both southern plains states like Oklahoma and northern plains states like Minnesota,” Mowls Carroll said. Mowls Carroll first developed an interest in the genetic fac- tors contributing to health and disease while pursuing a de- gree in molecular genetics. On the advice of a friend who knew of her passion for research, she pursued a master’s de- gree in epidemiology and then jumped eagerly into research work as a graduate assistant with the Biostatistics and Epide- miology Research Design and Analysis Center at the College under the supervision of Dr. Laura Beebe. Mowls Carroll was one of the College’s inaugural Hudson Fellows. That fellowship along with a National Institute of Drug Abuse grant provided the financial fuel for Mowls Car- roll to begin her own research into nicotine metabolism in American Indian tobacco users. Today, the interest ignited at OU continues to resonate in her work as a post-doctoral fellow in Tobacco Research Pro- grams at the University of Minnesota where she works to better understand why American Indians smoke more and also carry a very high rate of lung cancer incidence. “I am collecting biological samples, mainly urine and saliva, to measure certain biological markers of tobacco exposure,” she explained. “Biomarkers of exposure account for individ- ual differences in smoking intensity, carcinogen uptake and metabolism. These factors, in turn, affect a smoker’s suscep- tibility to the cancer-causing effects of cigarette smoke.” ALUMNI PROFILE The ABCs of Tobacco Use and Cancer