Irene Orlow

Biosketch

Irene Orlow is a scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department, where she leads the Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory (the Orlow Lab). Her laboratory supports investigations within the Population Sciences Research Program. Originally trained as a clinical biochemist in Buenos Aires, Argentina—where she worked in laboratory diagnostics and held professional memberships with the Argentine Biochemical Association and the Argentine College of Biochemists—she began her research career as a Visiting Scientist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University before joining Memorial Hospital for Cancer & Allied Diseases in 1991. She has built her career at MSK for more than three decades and joined the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in 2000.

Dr. Orlow’s research focuses on the genetic and molecular epidemiology of melanoma. She has contributed to melanoma-focused projects of genetic markers of melanoma progression, clonality in multiple primary melanoma, solar exposure and melanoma survival, and the roles of vitamin D receptor polymorphisms and MDM2/TP53-pathway variants in melanoma risk and outcomes. Her peer-reviewed research has addressed MC1R genotypes, BRAF and NRAS mutations, inherited susceptibility to multiple primary melanoma, and tumor molecular markers associated with patient outcomes.

Dr. Orlow has been involved with the Genes, Environment and Melanoma (GEM) Study Group since 2000 and is an active member of the International Skin Melanoma Consortium (InterMEL), contributing to its Biospecimens and Pathology Core. She is also a member of the International Lung Cancer Consortium and the Society for Melanoma Research. She has presented research at meetings in Europe, Australia, and North America and has served as a reviewer for dermatology and cancer journals.