Professor Mark Jenkins is the past Director of the Centre for Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Population & Global Health at the University of Melbourne. He is now Head of the Colorectal Cancer Unit. He is a cancer epidemiologist with over 25 years of experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of studies examining the role of genetic and environmental causes of cancer, and the prevention and early detection of colorectal cancer, particularly in screening participation.
He holds an NHMRC Investigator grant to lead a program to decrease bowel cancer mortality and morbidity by tackling Australia’s low participation in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (funded by an NHMRC Synergy grant and NHMRC Targeted Call for Research). He contributes to national screening guidelines, he leads a program to identify the genetic and lifestyle factors that cause bowel cancer, and he is developing personalised risk models so those most in need can be targeted for prevention. He leads the NIH-funded international collaboration: Colon Cancer Family Registry Cohort, and leads the worldwide study of Cancer Risks for Lynch syndrome. He currently teaches a post-graduate course in Genetic Epidemiology, and he is a member of the Clinical Advisory Group for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program.