NCI Biostatistics Investigator Retires
Dr. Philip S. Rosenberg, senior investigator in NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) Biostatistics Branch, retired in May after 37 years of federal service. Rosenberg is an internationally recognized expert in statistical approaches to study cancer surveillance and survival. He created numerous methods and tools, including the new age-period-cohort model and web tool, proportional hazards models for comparative APC analysis and methods to forecast the future burden of cancer.
In partnership with scientists in the Clinical Genetics Branch, Rosenberg developed approaches to investigate cancer risk in patients with inherited bone marrow failure syndromes.
As co-principal investigator on a series of descriptive studies of breast cancer, Rosenberg identified secular trends in prognosis, underlying causes of racial disparities and etiological heterogeneity of tumors. His methods were also used to establish etiological heterogeneity for other cancers, including hairy cell leukemia, Burkitt Lymphoma and non-cardia gastric cancers.
Rosenberg developed critical statistical approaches to analyze candidate GWAS (genome-wide association study) findings and pathways involving vitamin D metabolism, cell differentiation, apoptosis and lipid peroxidation, in collaborations across the division.
Rosenberg received a Ph.D. in biostatistics from Yale University. He joined the NCI in 1988 as a staff fellow.
His work has been recognized with the Howard W. Temin Award for his contribution to the developing statistical methods to monitor trends in HIV, and NIH Merit Awards for his collaborative work on inherited bone marrow failure syndromes; pioneering methods and software tools to identify candidate genes and pathways; and methods to monitor the AIDS epidemic and contribute to understanding the epidemic trends of HIV.