Parichoy Pal Choudhury, PhD

At ACS since 2022

As a Principal Scientist in Biostatistics, Parichoy Pal Choudhury, PhD,  works with both Surveillance and Health Equity Science (SHES) and Population Science teams within the American Cancer Society (ACS).

He leads a research program focused on the development of statistical methods in risk prediction with applications in risk-stratified cancer prevention. He conducts research on mission-priority topics across the cancer continuum and actively collaborates with scientists across the ACS Discovery Pillar as well as with investigators who are not part of the ACS.

Research focus and accomplishments

My research mainly focuses on developing methods and software tools for building and independently validating absolute risk-prediction models. I apply these models to predict absolute risk for breast cancer, lung cancer, and bladder cancer. The goal is to inform cancer prevention by stratifying the risks for developing cancer. 

For example, for these complex diseases, I build models to assess how factors like genetic variants and non-genetic factors interact to affect the risk of disease and whether the risk-factor associations differ across biologically heterogeneous disease subtypes.

My recent statistical methodology research focused on how to precisely estimate metrics of model performance in a prospective cohort where certain expensive biomarkers may be available only on a subgroup of the study participants. I showed an application of this method in lung cancer risk prediction in a paper published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

I have substantial experience in leading or co-leading large studies in a consortium setting. For example, I led a large validation effort within the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) for a model predicting absolute risk of breast cancer. This model was validated in 15 prospective cohorts across 6 countries and incorporated risk factors and polygenic risk score (PRS) with relative risks derived from literature. The paper was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology with a commentary.

My research had been recognized with several recent awards for early-career scientists:

• AACR-Club-R-K Scholars-in-training award, American Association for Cancer Research
• Young Investigator Award, Statistics in Epidemiology section, American Statistical Association
• Multiple research excellence awards from the National Cancer Institute

More recently, I am interested in the risk prediction of prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, association of infectious agents on hematologic malignancies, and cancer health disparities.

Publications

For a full list of Dr. Pal Choudhury’s publications, visit his Google Scholar page.  

Contact 

Other Appointments

• Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Adjunct Associate Professor of Epidemiology, 2023-Present
• Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Adjunct Member, 2023-Present
• US National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Adjunct Researcher, 2022-Present

Work before ACS

• US National Cancer Institute, Research Fellow, 2019-2022
• The Johns Hopkins University, Postdoctoral Researcher, 2016-2019

Education

• PhD: Biostatistics, The Johns Hopkins University, 2010-2016
• MStat: Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, 2008-2010
• BStat: Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, 2005-2008

Personal life 

I live with my wife, Dr. Tushita Mukhopadhyaya, a material scientist by profession, and our son, Prachyo Pal Choudhury, in the Brookhaven area in Atlanta. When I'm not doing research, I enjoy outdoor activities like hiking and kayaking and indoor ones like reading, watching movies, and listening to music.