About

Amy Boddy is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her work broadly focuses on evolutionary applications to human health and disease, integrating genomics, comparative biology, and evolutionary theory. Her research interests include evolution, genomics, phylogenetics, evolutionary medicine, maternal-fetal conflict, life history theory, and cancer. She holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Wayne State University School of Medicine. As a human biologist and evolutionary theorist, her multidisciplinary research applies evolutionary and ecological theory to understand life history trade-offs between survival and reproduction across different levels of biological organization. Her active research topics include comparative oncology and the evolution of cancer defenses across the tree of life, life history trade-offs in cancer with a focus on early life adversity and cancer outcomes, and maternal-fetal conflict in maternal health, including studies on microchimerism, maternal tolerance during pregnancy, the immunology of breastfeeding, and maternal health and behavior postpartum.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Genetics
• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Sociology
• Pathology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Internal medicine
• Social Science
• Management science
• Zoology
• Engineering ethics
• Computational biology
• Demography
• Engineering

Selected publications

• Testing Nature’s Defenses: Inducing Cancer in the Naked Mole Rat

  Cancer Discovery · 2026-01-12

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Although mice develop lung cancer from a single Eml4-Alk driver fusion, Shepard, Lester, and colleagues show that naked mole rats require three simultaneous oncogenic events: Eml4-Alk, Tp53 loss, and Rb1 loss, achieving only 30% tumor penetrance. This inducible cancer model in naked mole rats offers a unique platform for uncovering mechanisms of cancer resistance and modeling rare pleomorphic lung carcinomas. See related article by Shepard et al., p. 35.

  PublisherDOI

• Divergent understandings in comparative oncology

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026-02-02

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Abstract 7639: Primate comparative oncology reveal humans' unique cancer susceptibility

  Cancer Research · 2026-04-03

  article

  Abstract Studying cancer from an evolutionary perspective can yield important theoretical and applied insights; however, little is known about the prevalence of cancer among non-human primates. Non-human primates are our closest living relatives, yet the primate lineage is phenotypically diverse, exhibiting wide variation in evolutionary and life-history characteristics. By integrating comparative phenotypic data with prevalence records of neoplastic disease, we assembled a dataset of 2,095 individuals from 36 species across nine primate families to examine cross-species cancer risk. Additionally, functional in vitro studies using isolated and cultured primary fibroblast cell lines from representative species show that resistance to cellular death correlates with certain life-history traits. Comparative phylogenetic modeling of human cancer risk, situated within the broader primate phylogeny, demonstrates a drastic reduction in cancer risk even among primates most closely related to humans (e.g., the great apes). Together, large-scale cancer prevalence records and functional assays provide valuable insights into the ecological and cellular dynamics of cancer in our closest living relatives—and in ourselves. Citation Format: Zachary Taylor Compton, Walker Mellon, Lisa M. Abegglen, Tara Harrison, Joshua D. Schiffman, Amy M. Boddy, Carlo C. Maley. Primate comparative oncology reveal humans' unique cancer susceptibility [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2026; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2026 Apr 17-22; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2026;86(7 Suppl):Abstract nr 7639.

  PublisherDOI

• Trust, truth and transparency: analysing the references underpinning AI-generated surgical information

  Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England · 2026-03-18

  articleSenior author

  INTRODUCTION: Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, powered by large language models, are used increasingly for disseminating surgical information, but concerns about accuracy, hallucinations and source reliability persist. This study evaluates the sources of information upon which these systems rely when producing medical information. As these models generate language without true comprehension or reasoning, assessing the credibility and nature of their referenced sources is essential to promote transparency and support evidence-based integration of AI in healthcare. METHODS: =108 outputs); 1,249 references were extracted and assessed for quantity, authenticity, quality, source category, accessibility, geographic origin and attribution. RESULTS: Reference provision varied: four chatbots required explicit prompting, whereas others cited consistently. Hallucination rates ranged from 0% (five models) to 34% (Grok 3). Mean quality scores differed significantly, with Perplexity Research achieving the highest score (4.08) and ChatGPT-5 the lowest (2.39), reflecting differences observed in source type. Most references originated from the US or UK. Accessibility was best in Google Gemini (100% open access, clickable citations). Explicit prompting increased reference quantity significantly in six models and quality in one. CONCLUSIONS: AI chatbots exhibit heterogeneous reference integrity, with risks of hallucinations and biases underscoring the need for prompt engineering, model refinements and ongoing evaluation. Our findings suggest ongoing caution is required in surgical contexts to ensure safe, equitable information dissemination.

  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary Table S2 from Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates

  2025-01-13

  supplementary-materialsOpen accessSenior author

  <p>All data prevalence leaderboard</p>

  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary Figure S72 from Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates

  2025-01-13

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  <p>High resolution cladogram from Figure 6 in the main text with the species' names as tip labels</p>

  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary Figure S71 from Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates

  2025-01-13

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  <p>Analysis our of our regression results with various data transformation techniques</p>

  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary Table S7 from Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates

  2025-01-13

  supplementary-materialsOpen accessSenior author

  <p>Results from the bootstrap analysis of different sample size cutoffs</p>

  PublisherDOI

• Supplementary Table S8 from Cancer Prevalence across Vertebrates

  2025-01-13

  supplementary-materialsOpen accessSenior author

  <p>Cell line collection and passage number information for the functional cell assays</p>

  PublisherDOI

• The relationship between diet, plasma glucose, and cancer prevalence across vertebrates

  Nature Communications · 2025-03-12 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Birds have higher plasma glucose concentrations but lower cancer prevalence than other vertebrates. However, this inverse relationship between glucose and cancer may not hold within vertebrate groups. Given that diet affects blood sugar levels, and carnivores have higher cancer risk than herbivores, we also examined whether diet correlates with plasma glucose concentrations. We collected diet, mean plasma glucose concentration, and neoplasia data for up to 273 vertebrate species from existing databases. Across vertebrates, mean plasma glucose concentration negatively correlated with cancer prevalence, but that was mostly driven by differences in mean plasma glucose concentration and cancer prevalence between birds, mammals, and reptiles. Mean plasma glucose concentration was not correlated with diet across vertebrates nor with cancer prevalence within birds, mammals, or reptiles. Primary carnivores had higher neoplasia prevalence than herbivores when controlling for domestication. A hypothetical explanation for our results may be the evolutionary loss or downregulation of genes related to insulin-mediated glucose import in bird cells. This may have led to higher mean plasma glucose concentration, lower intracellular glucose concentrations in the form of glycogen, and production of fewer reactive oxygen species and inflammatory cytokines, potentially contributing to lower neoplasia prevalence in extant birds compared to mammals and reptiles.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lisa M. Abegglen

  Huntsman Cancer Institute

  105 shared

• Athena Aktipis

  65 shared

• Trevor A. Graham

  59 shared

• Hannah Davidson

  North Carolina State University

  58 shared

• Simon Spiro

  Wildlife Vets International

  57 shared

• Carlo C. Maley

  Arizona State University

  55 shared

• Joshua D. Schiffman

  Huntsman Cancer Institute

  54 shared

• Simón P. Castillo

  51 shared