Lisa Mirabello

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Lisa Mirabello

| image = Lisa Mirabello.png

| fields = Genetic susceptibility, pediatric cancer, HPV

| workplaces = National Cancer Institute

| alma_mater = University at Albany, SUNY, Cornell University, and New York Medical College

}}

Lisa J. Mirabello is an American medical geneticist who researches genetic susceptibility to pediatric cancer and the genomics of HPV carcinogenicity. She is a senior investigator in the clinical genetics branch at the National Cancer Institute.

Life

Lisa Mirabello earned her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences with a focus on molecular population genetics and infectious disease from the University at Albany, SUNY School of Public Health in 2007.{{Cite web |date=2013-09-20 |title=Lisa Mirabello, Ph.D., biographical sketch and research interests - NCI |url=https://dceg.cancer.gov/about/staff-directory/mirabello-lisa |access-date=2022-10-18 |website=dceg.cancer.gov |language=en}}{{PD-notice}} Her dissertation was titled, Molecular population genetics of the malaria vector Anopheles darlingi throughout Central and South America using mitochondrial, nuclear, and microsatellite markers. Her dissertation committee members included Jan Conn, Laura D. Kramer, Robert L. Glaser, Gregory Ebel, and Jason Cryan.{{Cite thesis |last=Mirabello |first=Lisa J. |title=Molecular population genetics of the malaria vector Anopheles darlingi throughout Central and South America using mitochondrial, nuclear, and microsatellite markers |date=2007 |oclc=304436034 |degree=Ph.D. |publisher=University at Albany, SUNY}} Mirabello joined the clinical genetics branch of the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) division of cancer epidemiology and genetics (DCEG) as a postdoctoral Cancer Genetics research fellow in 2007.

Mirabello was promoted to research fellow in 2010 and she was appointed as an Earl Stadtman Investigator in 2013. She was awarded National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientific tenure and promoted to senior investigator in 2019. Mirabello's research program is focused on genetic susceptibility to pediatric cancer and the genomics of HPV carcinogenicity. Her most cited work is Osteosarcoma incidence and survival rates from 1973 to 2004, which studied the large differences in incidence and survival rates by age of 3482 patients with osteosarcoma.{{Cite journal |last=Mirabello |first=Lisa |last2=Troisi |first2=Rebecca J. |last3=Savage |first3=Sharon A. |date=2009 |title=Osteosarcoma incidence and survival rates from 1973 to 2004 |url=https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.24121 |journal=Cancer |language=en |volume=115 |issue=7 |pages=1531–1543 |doi=10.1002/cncr.24121 |issn=1097-0142 |pmc=2813207 |pmid=19197972}}

Research Topics

= Osteosarcoma - Pediatric Bone Cancer =

DCEG investigators have a major interest in identifying genetic mutants associated with osteosarcoma, a primary bone cancer of adolescents and young adults.{{Cite web |date=2012-05-17 |title=Bone Cancer (osteosarcoma) - NCI |url=https://dceg.cancer.gov/research/cancer-types/bone |access-date=2025-04-27 |website=dceg.cancer.gov |language=en}} NCI has conducted several studies to better understand the role of common and rare genetic variation in osteosarcoma and patient outcomes.

NCI conducted the first genome-wide association studies of osteosarcoma susceptibility of osteosarcoma metastasis at diagnosis, and of osteosarcoma overall survival. Investigators in the Clinical Genetics Branch identified a high frequency of rare deleterious variants in TP53 and other cancer-susceptibility genes in osteosarcoma patients.

= Carcinogenic HPV Genomics =

This project is designed to examine the relationship between sequence changes in the HPV genome and carcinogenicity.{{Cite web |date=2013-01-15 |title=Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Viral Genomics Project - NCI |url=https://dceg.cancer.gov/research/cancer-types/cervix/hpv-viral-genomics |access-date=2025-04-27 |website=dceg.cancer.gov |language=en}} HPV type 16 is known to cause half of all cervical cancer cases worldwide, however, the specific reason for its carcinogenicity has been elusive.

A global, high-risk HPV genome sequencing method has been developed and is being used to compare HPV16-related types to HPV16. Using the HPV 16 assay, investigators can sequence the entire HPV 16 genome in samples from infected women and classify the viruses into lineages and sublineages. Through this process, they discovered considerable risk differences for precancer and cancer and identified specific variant sublineages that strongly influence HPV 16 carcinogenicity and histologic outcome.{{Cite journal |last=Mirabello |first=Lisa |last2=Yeager |first2=Meredith |last3=Cullen |first3=Michael |last4=Boland |first4=Joseph F. |last5=Chen |first5=Zigui |last6=Wentzensen |first6=Nicolas |last7=Zhang |first7=Xijun |last8=Yu |first8=Kai |last9=Yang |first9=Qi |last10=Mitchell |first10=Jason |last11=Roberson |first11=David |last12=Bass |first12=Sara |last13=Xiao |first13=Yanzi |last14=Burdett |first14=Laurie |last15=Raine-Bennett |first15=Tina |date=September 2016 |title=HPV16 Sublineage Associations With Histology-Specific Cancer Risk Using HPV Whole-Genome Sequences in 3200 Women |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27130930 |journal=Journal of the National Cancer Institute |volume=108 |issue=9 |pages=djw100 |doi=10.1093/jnci/djw100 |issn=1460-2105 |pmc=5939630 |pmid=27130930}}

Further, investigators compared HPV 16 genomic sequences between cases and controls and discovered that controls, who had benign infections, had infections with significantly more protein-changing variants throughout the genome, while cases had infections devoid of protein-changing variants particularly in the E7 oncogene.{{Cite journal |last=Mirabello |first=Lisa |last2=Yeager |first2=Meredith |last3=Yu |first3=Kai |last4=Clifford |first4=Gary M. |last5=Xiao |first5=Yanzi |last6=Zhu |first6=Bin |last7=Cullen |first7=Michael |last8=Boland |first8=Joseph F. |last9=Wentzensen |first9=Nicolas |last10=Nelson |first10=Chase W. |last11=Raine-Bennett |first11=Tina |last12=Chen |first12=Zigui |last13=Bass |first13=Sara |last14=Song |first14=Lei |last15=Yang |first15=Qi |date=2017-09-07 |title=HPV16 E7 Genetic Conservation Is Critical to Carcinogenesis |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28886384 |journal=Cell |volume=170 |issue=6 |pages=1164–1174.e6 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.001 |issn=1097-4172 |pmc=5674785 |pmid=28886384}} These findings contribute to resolving the outstanding question of why common and typically benign HPV 16 infections only sometimes cause cancer. Follow-up work on the potent carcinogenicity of an intact HPV16 E7 protein is underway.

DCEG experts have also developed a novel Next-Generation Sequencing HPV genotyping assay based on their HPV genome sequencing. The new approach provides low-cost, high-throughput genotyping that will lead to major cost-savings for large cervical cancer screening and vaccination studies conducted by DCEG and other research groups since most current genotyping assays are expensive and laborious.

Selected works and publications

Jacobs, K. B., Yeager, M., Zhou, W., Wacholder, S., Wang, Z., Rodriguez-Santiago, B., Hutchinson, A., Deng, X., Liu, C., Horner, M.-J., Cullen, M., Epstein, C. G., Burdett, L., Dean, M. C., Chatterjee, N., Sampson, J., Chung, C. C., Kovaks, J., Gapstur, S. M., & Stevens, V. L. (2012). Detectable clonal mosaicism and its relationship to aging and cancer. Nature Genetics, 44(6), 651–658. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2270
Maria Teresa Landi, Chatterjee, N., Yu, K., Goldin, L. R., Goldstein, A. M., Rotunno, M., Mirabello, L., Jacobs, K., William Morton Wheeler, Yeager, M., Bergen, A. W., Li, Q., Consonni, D., Angela Cecilia Pesatori, Sholom Wacholder, Thun, M., Diver, R., Oken, M. M., Jarmo Virtamo, & Albanes, D. (2009). A Genome-wide Association Study of Lung Cancer Identifies a Region of Chromosome 5p15 Associated with Risk for Adenocarcinoma. American Society of Human Genetics, 85(5), 679–691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2009.09.012
Mirabello, L., Troisi, R. J., & Savage, S. A. (2009). Osteosarcoma incidence and survival rates from 1973 to 2004. Cancer, 115(7), 1531–1543. https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.24121
Nelson, C. W., & Mirabello, L. (2023). Human papillomavirus genomics: Understanding carcinogenicity. Tumour Virus Research, 15, 200258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tvr.2023.200258
The ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium. (2020). Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes. Nature, 578(7793), 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-1969-6
Wentzensen, I. M., Mirabello, L., Pfeiffer, R. M., & Savage, S. A. (2011). The Association of Telomere Length and Cancer: a Meta-analysis. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 20(6), 1238–1250. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.epi-11-0005