Professor Kensler explains that the importance of aflatoxin and the causation of liver cancer results from a life long series of exposures.

Thomas Kensler, Ph.D. is a professor at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms involved in the development of cancers linked to exposure to environmental carcinogens. This research has led to potential chemopreventative strategies for liver cancer in populations at high risk for aflatoxin exposure. “I believe the importance of aflatoxin and the causation of liver cancer results from a life long series of exposures. Intermittent sort of random exposures are not likely to sort of tip the balance and create the cancer cells; our defense mechanisms are pretty good for those very low levels and intermittent levels of exposure. But there is a chronic long-term exposure through the diet in many of these high-risk areas. In turn that means we need a chronic long term commitment to a preventive intervention. We need an intervention that people could take every day or at least several times a week, but not just for weeks to make the problem go away, but for the rest of their lives. For as long as the aflatoxin exposure is there, the need for the countermanding or intervention approach is also very important.”

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