Dr. Llanos studies molecular epidemiology, trying to identify new “biomarkers” that can be used to predict the onset, severity, and prognosis of disease.

Dr. Llanos received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Genetics and Human Genetics from Howard University. She did postdoctoral work on cancer at Georgetown University and earned her M.P.H in epidemiology at at The Ohio State University. She was hired by Rutgers in June 2013, where she holds appointments from both the School of Public Health and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. In 2015, she received a K01 grant from the National Cancer Institute — the NCI uses these grants to increase diversity in cancer researchers by providing 3-5 years of salary and research funding to promising new research scientists for “intensive research development” with an experienced committee of advisers.

The project proposed by Dr. Llanos, which the NCI has agreed to fund for five years, aims to better understand the connection between obesity and breast cancer risk. Specifically, she is interested in adipokines — cell signaling proteins released by adipocytes (fat cells), which help regulate our perceptions of hunger/fullness as well as levels of glucose in the blood. She believes that differences in adipokines and the receptors that recognize them are related to disparities in breast cancer risk for African American and Caucasian women. She hopes that this work will help identify new biomarkers for triple-negative breast cancer — variables that can be easily measured and used to predict who will develop this (extremely aggressive) form of breast cancer.