Gail Laughlin, PhD

Gail Laughlin, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, Division of Epidemiology.  Dr. Laughlin earned her PhD from the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health.

Tracks:  Epidemiology

Dr. Laughlin’s research interest is focused on the role of endogenous hormones in the development of diseases of aging, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, cognitive decline, diabetes and osteoporosis. She has an extensive background in endocrinology with investigations encompassing hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal and gonadal hormones, as well as a number of metabolic hormones (the GH-IGF axis, adiponectin, leptin, insulin, glucose) and inflammatory markers. Dr. Laughlin is a primary investigator of the Rancho Bernardo Study (RBS) of Healthy Aging, and multiple-PI of a grant to archive the 48-year RBS dataset on an open-access website. She is a participant in the Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group at Oxford, an investigator in the DAWN (DHEA and Wellness) trial, and co-author of publications based on endocrine data from the MROS study (The Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study).

Dr. Laughlin is particularly interested in the role of endogenous endocrine factors in determining sex differences in diseases of aging, and in defining the biological factors linking diseases of the heart with those of the bone, brain, and breast.

• Aging and Public Health
• Epidemiology