Caroline Helen Johnson

Caroline Helen Johnson, PhD, is a Tenured Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. She holds multiple joint appointments across Yale University, including at the Yale Cancer Center, Department of Microbiology, and Program in Translational Biomedicine. Her research integrates metabolomics with epidemiology to investigate sex-specific differences in colorectal cancer and environmental exposures.

Dr. Johnson's primary research focuses on sex-specific differences in colorectal cancer metabolism. In 2020, her lab published the first sex-stratified metabolomics analysis of tumor tissues from colorectal cancer patients, revealing that aberrant asparagine metabolism is a hallmark of tumors from female patients only and associates with poorer clinical outcomes. Her lab also studies early-onset colorectal cancer (under age 50), discovering distinct metabolic profiles in younger patients including downregulated dopamine metabolism and increased phospholipid metabolism. Additionally, her team investigates environmental exposures and their biological impacts using metabolomics, with particular expertise in analyzing dried blood spots to measure early-life exposures that may contribute to later-life cancer development.

Dr. Johnson's recent publications (2024-2025) demonstrate a strong focus on sex-specific cancer biology, with multiple papers examining asparagine metabolism in colorectal cancer, sex differences in tumor growth, and the development of comprehensive databases documenting sex-based differences in oncologic diseases. Her work spans multiple disciplines including cancer metabolism, microbiome research, environmental toxicology, and clinical oncology.

• YSPH Impact Prize (2025)
• YSPH Team Science Research Award (2024)
• International Metabolomics Society Career Medal (2023)
• Metabolomics Association of North America Women in Science (Womix) mentorship award (2023)
• K12 Calabresi Immuno-Oncology Training Program Award (2021)

Dr. Johnson serves as Associate Editor for both Metabolomics and Toxicological Sciences journals and has advised numerous students, including PhD candidate Xinyi Shen. Her lab has developed specialized protocols for metabolite normalization in various clinical matrices and maintains active collaborations across Yale's medical and public health schools. Current research directions include validating findings on early-onset colorectal cancer metabolism, understanding the mechanisms behind sex-specific asparagine metabolism in cancer, and expanding the application of metabolomics to assess environmental exposures and their biological impacts.