Wendy Cozen

About

Wendy Cozen is a professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology within the School of Medicine at UC Irvine. Her research interests include cancer epidemiology, cancer disparities, immunology, tumor micro-environment, Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, pathological epidemiology, and molecular epidemiology. She holds a D.O. from Western University of Health Sciences, an M.P.H. from UCLA School of Public Health, and a B.A. from Occidental College. Her work involves studying the epidemiology and biological mechanisms of various cancers, with a focus on lymphoma and multiple myeloma. She has contributed to understanding the genetic and environmental factors influencing cancer risk, including the role of infectious mononucleosis, immune genotypes, and HLA variation in lymphoma etiology and survival. Her research also explores the microbiome's association with breast cancer risk factors, DNA methylation patterns in Hodgkin lymphoma survivors, and the genetic overlap between autoimmune diseases and non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes. Through her extensive publication record, she has advanced knowledge in cancer risk factors, genetic predispositions, and disparities in cancer outcomes.

Research topics

• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Oncology
• Genetics
• Biology
• Demography
• Pathology
• Evolutionary biology
• Cancer research
• Immunology

Selected publications

• Polygenic Risk, Agent Orange Exposure, and Lymphoid Neoplasms in the Veterans Affairs Million Veteran Program

  JAMA Network Open · 2025-08-13 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Agent Orange (AO), a toxic herbicide mixture contaminated with carcinogenic dioxin, was widely used during the Vietnam War. Although epidemiologic evidence suggests AO exposure is associated with increased lymphoid malignant neoplasm risk, the details of this association and its potential interaction with genetic factors remain unclear. Objective: To evaluate (1) whether AO exposure was associated with increased risk of lymphoid malignant neoplasms, (2) associations of polygenic risk…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cancer Risk in Veterans Enlisted in the United States Military after September 11, 2001: A Retrospective Cohort Study

  Military Medicine · 2025-11-14 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  INTRODUCTION: Potential exposures to toxicants during military deployment may increase the risk of developing cancer. This study was undertaken to determine whether there is an association of cancer risk with post-9/11 deployment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cohort study of U.S. veterans who enlisted in the military after September 11, 2001, and enrolled in the Veteran Affairs (VA). The primary outcome was incident cases of cancer. Deployment was determined by identification on the Operatio…

  PublisherDOI

• Genetically determined body mass index is associated with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in polygenic and Mendelian randomization analyses.

  UNC Libraries · 2026-01-09

  articleOpen access

  Obesity has been associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), but the evidence is inconclusive. We examined the association between genetically determined adiposity and four common NHL subtypes: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), follicular lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and marginal zone lymphoma, using eight genome-wide association studies of European ancestry (N = 10,629 cases, 9505 controls) and constructing polygenic scores for body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip r…

  PublisherDOI

• Female-specific hypertension risk factors across the lifecourse: a co-twin control analysis using the California Twin Program

  American Journal of Epidemiology · 2026-01-13

  articleOpen access

  Twin studies have been underutilized for examining female-specific etiology of hypertension (HT). The discordant co-twin design offers unique strengths not afforded by other approaches primarily because relatedness and shared origins naturally match twin pairs more closely on genetic and early environmental confounders. We aimed to confirm HT-associated factors across the lifecourse among 202 female twin pairs identified from the California Twin Program (CTP) registry. A baseline questionnaire q…

  PublisherDOI

• A Nested Case-Control Study of Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance in the Multiethnic Cohort Study.

  Blood Advances · 2026-01-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) is a necessary precursor of multiple myeloma (MM). Compared to non-Hispanic Whites (Whites), African Americans experience about 2-fold greater, and Asian Americans 50% lower, occurrence of MGUS and MM. We examined determinants of MGUS and progression to MM or other plasma cell neoplasms (PCN) among Japanese American, African American, Latino, Native Hawaiian, and White participants in a case-control study nested in the Multiethnic Cohort…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03CA110836

  NIH · $161k · 2007

• NIH Grant R01CA206019

  NIH · $3.4M · 2023

• NIH Grant R01CA134786

  NIH · $6.4M · 2017

Frequent coauthors

• James R. Cerhan

  Mayo Clinic in Florida

  726 shared

• Patricia Hartge

  709 shared

• Richard K. Severson

  606 shared

• Sophia Wang

  Sun Yat-sen University

  487 shared

• Scott Davis

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  474 shared

• Nathaniel Rothman

  429 shared

• Brenda Y. Hernandez

  University of Hawaii System

  395 shared

• Lindsay M. Morton

  National Institutes of Health

  385 shared

Education

• B.A.

  Occidental College

  1975

• Other, Epidemiology

  UCLA School of Public Health

  1989

• Other

  Western University of Health Sciences

  1982

Similar researchers at University of California, Irvine

• Simin Liuh-187
• Daniel L. Gillenh-79
• Bin Nanh-55