On Tuesday, November 17, 2025, members from the REPEL team joined colleagues from across Rutgers at the annual Cancer Prevention and Control (CPC) Program Conference, held in person at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. The event brings together scientists, clinicians, trainees, and community partners to review CPC Program progress, discuss feedback from the Evaluation Advisory Board (EAB), and identify new opportunities for collaboration in cancer prevention and survivorship research.
This year’s conference emphasized several emerging priorities in cancer population science, including advances in clinical informatics, environmental exposure research, and translational partnerships with basic scientists. Posters and presentations highlighted new findings from ongoing CPC studies, among them work led by the Dr.Iyer’s Lab on environmental contributors to prostate cancer outcomes.
Stefanie Joseph, our research coordinator, presented results from the REPEL (Research on the Epidemiology of Prostate Cancer and Environmental Levels) study, a pilot project examining how exposure to PFAS “forever chemicals” may influence prostate cancer survivorship. Her poster detailed the study’s recruitment strategy, multi-modal data collection methods, and early results.
Preliminary findings show how communication, partnerships, and shared resources supported recruitment of 95 participants, that tap-water PFAS concentrations for 30 participants fall below New Jersey’s regulatory thresholds, and that serum PFAS levels are comparable to statewide and national averages. These findings help to better understand PFAS in prostate cancer survivors and demonstrate the feasibility of expanding REPEL into a larger cohort.
