Dr. Warren Andersen's research interests include understanding how social determinants, biological factors, and modifiable risk factors work in concert to influence cancer risk and survivorship. Her current research program uses molecular epidemiologic methods to identify risk factors and prognostic indicators for colorectal cancer. Dr. Warren Andersen's R01 project defines the molecular characteristics of colorectal cancer tumors that are associated with more aggressive phenotypes of the disease, and evaluates whether the distribution of aggressive phenotypes varies by race.

She first became interested in this area of research while working on her K99/R00 project - which investigated differences in colorectal cancer risk among several racial and ethnic populations - and based on the knowledge that colorectal cancer mortality varies by race, where African Americans have a 40% higher colorectal cancer mortality rate in comparison to non-Hispanic whites. The R01 study characterizes colorectal cancer tumors at the transcriptomic-, genomic- and pathologic-level to compare survival outcomes of non-Hispanic African Americans to non-Hispanic whites. The study is of much significance in determining the contribution of tumor attributes to the colorectal cancer survival disparity experienced by African Americans.