Research Summary
Brian Sullivan is a Physician Scientist in gastroenterology. His clinical and research interests are focused on identifying high-risk colorectal cancer (CRC) syndromes and developing strategies for improved CRC screening and surveillance. Recent studies utilized existing Veterans Affairs (VA) colonoscopy cohorts to address knowledge gaps in several key areas: the utility of baseline clinical and endoscopic factors to predict long-term CRC outcomes, the yield of multiple follow up (i.e., “surveillance”) colonoscopies in various risk populations, and the role of genetic markers in determining an individual’s risk for developing increased lifetime adenoma counts. These projects led to first author publications in Gastroenterology, American Journal of Gastroenterology, and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. He was recently awarded the 2021 American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Research Scholar Award to develop novel strategies that may help target colonoscopy follow up resources to those most likely to benefit based on their genetic risk profiles. Dr. Sullivan’s overall career goal is to lead a collaborative research program and develop effective, personalized strategies for colorectal cancer (CRC) prevention.
Relevance of Research to CGIBD Mission: Dr. Sullivan’s research seeks to develop novel clinical and/or genomic strategies to more accurately identify individuals at high-risk for colorectal cancer (CRC), and then improve targeting of colonoscopy resources for more effective CRC prevention.
CGIBD Focus Area(s): Clinical/Translational
Collaborators: Roper, Garman
