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Who sits on the Expert Committees, as part of the Global Cancer Update Programme, and what do they do?
As part of the updated Global Cancer Update Programme, we have identified 4 key areas of research focus. Each of these areas has its own Expert Committee, which will work alongside their Chair to guide and support each work area.
> View the main CUP Global Panel
> Expert Committee on Cancer Incidence
> Expert Committee on Cancer Survivorship
> Expert Committee on Cancer Mechanisms
Reviewing diet, nutrition, physical activity and cancer incidence will continue to be a core element of the Global Cancer Update Programme.
> Chair of the Expert Committee on Cancer Incidence: Professor Monica Baskin
Dr Yikyung Park, Washington University,
US
Yikyung Park is an Associate Professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, at Washington University School of Medicine.
She received a doctoral degree in nutritional epidemiology from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in 2005.
Dr Park previously worked at the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute and received the Award of Merit for scientific leadership of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.
Her research focuses on identifying diet, lifestyle, and environmental factors that are related to cancer risk and survival, and her work on diet, obesity and physical activity (h-index 71) made a significant contribution to the WCRF’s Third Expert Report and Cancer Prevention Recommendations.
Her recent work includes the effects of eating time, temporal dietary patterns, and circadian rhythm-disrupting lifestyle on cancer and chronic diseases.
Another area of her research interest is nutritional epidemiology methods development, including measurement error corrections in diet-disease associations, biomarkers of dietary intakes, and temporal dietary patterns.
Prof Michael Leitzmann, Regensburg University, Germany
Michael Leitzmann is chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He holds an MD from the University of Berlin, and a MPH in quantitative methods and a doctorate in public health from Harvard University.
His main research interests involve the independent and joint relations of physical activity, body size, and diet to the development and prognosis of chronic disease, particularly cancer. This includes methodological research on the assessment of physical activity and its individual components in large-scale epidemiologic studies and clarification of biologic mechanisms linking the adverse effects of physical inactivity and adiposity to cancer risk and prognosis.
Prior to his appointment at Regensburg University, he was an investigator at the Nutritional Epidemiology Branch of the US National Cancer Institute, where he served as co-principal investigator of the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, a prospective cohort of over 500,000 US women and men.
He holds a group award of merit for exemplary leadership in advancing the US National Cancer Institute’s commitment to understanding the science of energy balance and cancer, and applying that understanding to reduce the cancer burden.
Dr Jennifer Baker, Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark
Dr Jennifer Baker is a Senior Researcher and leader of the group on lifecourse epidemiology at the Center for Clinical Research and Prevention, Copenhagen University Hospital System, in Denmark.
Her research programme investigates how body size and growth during childhood in combination with other exposures across the life course relate to disease. Dr Baker’s work focuses on short- and long-term effects of overweight and obesity in children.
She and her group have shown that a higher body mass index in childhood increases the risk during adult life of numerous non-communicable diseases including 9 types of cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Dr Baker has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and served on several international expert scientific committees.
She is co-chair for the European Association for the Study of Obesity Childhood Obesity Task Force.
Prof Elisa Bandera, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, US
Professor and Chief, Cancer Epidemiology and Health Outcomes, Cancer Prevention and Control Program Leader, and Unilever Endowed Chair for the Study of Diet and Nutrition in the Prevention of Chronic Disease at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Professor of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School New Brunswick, New Jersey
Prof Bandera’s major research interests include the impact of obesity on breast and ovarian cancer risk, and treatment outcomes and survival, with a focus on cancer health disparities.
She has served as principal investigator in several epidemiologic studies, including the New Jersey Ovarian Cancer Study, which is a member of the Ovarian Cancer Association International Consortium, the Jersey Girl Study (a study evaluating factors affecting puberty in girls), the Women’s Circle of Health Study (a study of breast cancer in African-American women, which is a member of the AMBER Consortium), the Women’s Circle of Health Follow-up Study (a cohort study of African-American breast cancer survivors), and KP-ROCS (a cohort study evaluating racial/ethnic disparities in ovarian cancer).
Her research has been funded by several grants from the National Cancer Institute. Prof Bandera led the systematic literature review and meta-analysis on endometrial cancer in support of the 2007 WCRF/AICR Second Expert Report and served for more than 10 years as a member of the WCRF/AICR Expert Panel for the Continuous Update Project and the 2018 WCRF/AICR Third Expert Report.
Dr Mark Sherman, Mayo Clinic, US
Dr Sherman is Professor of Epidemiology, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and Cancer Biology at the Mayo Clinic in Florida.
His focus is interdisciplinary research focusing on discovering risk factors, markers and mechanisms that predict the development and prognosis of women’s cancers.
Before joining the Mayo Clinic in 2016, Dr Sherman was at the National Cancer Institute, where he worked in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (intramural research) and Division of Cancer Prevention (extramural Branch Chief).
He started his career at the University of Chicago, before moving to a pathology residency at New England Deaconess Hospital, and a cytopathology fellowship at Montefiore Medical Center. He spent 13 years as an academic diagnostic pathologist.
Dr Steven Clinton, The Ohio State University, US
Dr Clinton is a physician-scientist at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is director of the large multidisciplinary genitourinary cancer programme at The James Cancer Hospital where he specialises in prostate cancer.
Dr Clinton’s research activities focus on many aspects of diet, nutrition and cancer. The research efforts include metabolic epidemiology and clinical intervention trials, as well as basic laboratory studies of cellular and molecular biology resulting in over 320 scientific publications, reviews and book chapters.
Dr Clinton provides service to many national and international organisations involved in the war on cancer. He has served AICR/WCRF as chair of the annual meeting, grant reviewer, and on multiple review panels including the landmark 2018 report.
Dr Clinton completed service to the US Department of Health and Human Services to prepare the dietary guidelines for America 2015–2020 Report, which impacts hundreds of food and agriculture programmes in the US.
He served the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences to define dietary reference intakes for calcium and vitamin D. Current efforts include working with the American Society for Clinical Oncology to define diet, nutrition and exercise guidelines during cancer therapy.
Dr Paul Brennan, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), France
Paul Brennan is head of the Genomic Epidemiology Branch of IARC/WHO in Lyon, France.
The research focus of the branch is to use genomic techniques and biomarkers to help identify non-genetic risk factors for cancer, and even help identify early-stage cancers.
His group works with colleagues in many different parts of the world, with active field work studies in central and eastern Europe, central and south-east Asia, and South America.
We want to focus on the impact of diet, nutrition and physical activity on long-term health after a cancer diagnosis.
> Chair of the Expert Committee on Cancer Survivorship: Dr Ellen Copson
Prof Andrew Renahan, University of Manchester, UK
Andrew Renehan is Professor of Cancer Studies and Surgery at the University of Manchester, and researcher at the Manchester Cancer Research Centre and the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, UK.
He is honorary consultant in colorectal and peritoneal surgical oncology at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester.
He leads research in the following areas:
He was a member of the IARC handbook writing group on weight control and cancer in 2016 and is chair of the EASD Diabetes and Cancer Study Group.
He is part of the CRUK Alliance for Cancer Early Detection. He uses advanced statistical methodologies to support his research including causal inference modelling, advanced meta-analysis methods, and quasi-experiments designs through observational data.
ProfAnne May, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Netherlands
Anne May is a Professor in Clinical Epidemiology of Cancer Survivorship and Manager Research at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands.
She’s been involved in exercise oncology research for almost 20 years and has performed several multi-centre randomised controlled trials showing the positive effects of exercise on treatment-related side-effects in patients with, among others, breast, colon or oesophageal cancer.
She is leading the international PREFERABLE consortium investigating the effects of exercise in patients with metastatic breast cancer (EFFECT study) and the effects of individualised live-remote exercise in patients with long-lasting complaints after cancer treatment (LION-RCT) in Europe and Australia.
She also serves at lifestyle and cancer-related guideline panels (ASCO, ACSM).
Prof Anne Tjønneland, Danish Cancer Society Research Centre, Denmark
With more than 30 years of research experience in nutritional and cancer epidemiology, Anne Tjønneland has established and is principal investigator of the Danish prospective cohort study Diet, Cancer and Health – a diet and lifestyle information biobank of 57,053 participants.
In 2015–19, the cohort was extended to include biological children and grandchildren in the Diet, Cancer and Health – Next Generations study.
Prof Tjønneland is principal investigator and member of the steering committee of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), a multi-centre cohort study with 10 European countries.
She was named as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate/Web of Science in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and has more than 1,300 peer-reviewed publications.
Prof Galina Velikova, University of Leeds, UK
Galina Velikova is an academic Medical Oncologist at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, UK, with more than 20 years of successful patient-centred research using electronic patient-reported outcome measures in daily practice and clinical trials.
She led a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) 5-year programme grant for applied research on patient self-reported symptoms and toxicity, using an online reporting system (QTool), uniquely integrated in electronic records, along redesigned care pathways for remote monitoring during cancer treatment to improve patient safety. Further research projects evaluate the use of the electronic system for remote monitoring and follow-up of cancer patients after treatment.
Prof Velikova has experience in leading collaborative research, both nationally and internationally, such as quality of life sub-studies of international breast cancer trials (TACT2, SUPREMO). She is on the steering committee for the NHS England national quality-of-life metric project for cancer survivors.
Prof Velikova is former chair of the British Psychosocial Oncology Society and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group; and former president of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Research (ISOQOL).
She’s chair of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Living With and Beyond Cancer Group and was an elected board member of the EORTC from 2018–21.
Prof Velikova is a practising consultant in medical oncology with clinical work focused on systemic treatment of breast cancer patients with early and advanced disease.
Prof Karen Steindorf, DKFZ and NCT, Germany
Prof Steindorf is head of the division of Physical Activity, Prevention and Cancer at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) and the National Centre for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg, and full professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg.
She studied statistics with the application field theoretical medicine at the Universities of Dortmund, Bochum and Sheffield (UK), and continued her scientific career at DKFZ and the National Cancer Institute, US.
Prof Steindorf’s research focuses on the role of physical activity and exercise in primary and tertiary cancer prevention, as well as on the quality of life of cancer patients.
She has been co-ordinating principal investigator of numerous innovative randomised clinical exercise trials with cancer patients. Through these trials, as well as additional large-scale observational studies and integrated translational investigations on underlying biological mechanisms, she has produced influential research exploring the efficacy of exercise in cancer prevention.
Beyond this, she developed a strong research focus on the management of cancer- and treatment-related side-effects as well as various aspects of health-related quality of life, including cancer-related fatigue, sleep problems, pain and cognitive impairments.
Dr Martijn Bours, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Martijn Bours is a movement scientist and physiotherapist by training. Since 2002, he has been working at the Department of Epidemiology of Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
He obtained his PhD degree in 2007 and is an associate professor involved in research on colorectal cancer survivorship.
His main research interests are the role that lifestyle behaviour (dietary habits and physical activity) and related factors (body composition) play in the health, quality of life and functioning of survivors of colorectal cancer.
His research is embedded within the GROW School for Oncology and Reproduction of the Maastricht University Medical Center.
Dr Melissa Hudson, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, US
Melissa Hudson is a member and director of the Cancer Survivorship Division in the Department of Oncology and holds the Charles E Williams Endowed Chair of Oncology-Cancer Survivorship.
She directs the St Jude After Completion of Therapy (ACT) programme, which monitors long-term childhood cancer survivors treated on St Jude trials.
Dr Hudson disseminated the St Jude model of risk-based survivor care in her role as co-chair of the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) long-term follow-up guidelines for survivors of childhood, adolescent and young adult cancer and co-chair of the international late effects of childhood cancer guideline harmonisation group (IGHG).
She’s chair of the education committee of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) and a member of the CCSS executive committee.
Dr Hudson works collaboratively with multidisciplinary investigators at St Jude and within COG, IGHG and the CCSS in research initiatives evaluating biomedical and psychosocial outcomes among childhood cancer survivors, and translating data from health outcomes research into evidence-informed clinical practice guidelines and interventions to improve the quality and duration of survival after childhood cancer.
Prof Rod Skinner, Newcastle University, UK
Prof Rod Skinner has been a consultant in paediatric and adolescent oncology/BMT in Newcastle upon Tyne since 1995, and is Honorary Professor of Childhood Cancer at Newcastle University.
He qualified in Birmingham in 1983 and trained in paediatric haematology/oncology and BMT in Newcastle, and was awarded a PhD in 1995 for his research thesis into chemotherapy-induced nephrotoxicity in children with cancer.
He was the clinical lead in Newcastle for paediatric haematology allogeneic BMT, long-term follow-up (LTFU), and bone marrow failure, as well as a busy practice in paediatric/adolescent leukaemia, until 2019. Subsequently, he has worked solely in LTFU and survivorship care.
His research interests include late adverse effects of childhood cancer treatment, especially nephrotoxicity, LTFU of childhood cancer survivors, and development of LTFU guidelines. He is a member of the UK Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group, and a long-standing member of the Late Effects Group (chair 2016–21), Supportive Care Group (chair 2003–08) and BMT Group (chair 2008–12).
He was a national clinical adviser in the NHS National Cancer Survivorship Initiative (2008–12). In 2008, he was one of the three founding members of PanCare (Pan-European Network for Care of Survivors after Childhood and Adolescent Cancer).
Prof Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, University of Alabama, US
Wendy Demark-Wahnefried is Professor and Webb Endowed Chair of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Associate Director for Cancer Prevention and Control at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB.
Her research ranges from determining mechanisms of action of nutrition-based therapies to developing and testing home-based interventions that are scalable and which improve diet, physical activity and functional status among cancer survivors.
This research has been supported by 16 NIH grants and resulted in more than 300 peer-reviewed publications. Prof Demark-Wahnefried has been recognised as a Komen Professor of Survivorship and an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professor.
She has served on several committees including: the National Cancer Policy Forum of the National Academy of Sciences, guidelines panels of the American Cancer Society, World Cancer Research Fund, American College of Sports Medicine, and American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Biden Cancer Initiative, and as a study section member for the NIH Center of Scientific Review.
Her research teams are testing the impact of a vegetable gardening intervention among cancer survivors across Alabama, and a web-based diet (weight loss) and exercise intervention entitled AiM, Plan and act on LIFestYles (AMPLIFY) among older survivors of obesity-related cancers across the continental US.
Prof Folakemi Odedina, Mayo Clinic, US
Prof Folakemi Odedina is an internationally recognised cancer researcher and academic leader.
She has led global research programmes for decades, primarily funded by the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Defense. This research focuses on developing cost-effective, community-based behavioral intervention programmes to address prostate cancer in Black males.
Her research, education, training and community outreach activities have exclusively focused on addressing health disparities in racial and ethnic minority and underserved communities.
As a behavioral scientist, she conducts behavioral research across the translational continuum to test behavioral models, confirm who will benefit from behavioral interventions and examine how to deliver interventions in all settings.
Prof Odedina’s research programme has developed and validated multiple behavioral models that include multilevel assessment of barriers and facilitators for the uptake of interventions, tested and adapted interventions that include behavioral clinical trials, and worked closely with community health workers to implement health intervention programmes in diverse community settings worldwide.
She has also been a leader in training future scientists whose backgrounds are underrepresented in biomedical research.
Her focus areas of research are transatlantic roots of prostate cancer disparities in Black males, cancer care and survivorship, vaccine diversity, global health equity, global oncology research and diversity in clinical trials.
We aim to develop a clearer understanding of the biological processes that underpin associations between diet, nutrition, physical activity and cancer.
> Chair of the Cancer Mechanisms Expert Committee: Prof Sarah Lewis
Prof Stephen Hursting, University of North Carolina, US
Stephen Hursting is the AICR/WCRF Distinguished Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Director of the Nutrition Research Institute, and member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.
He earned his PhD in nutritional biochemistry and MPH in nutritional epidemiology from UNC-Chapel Hill, and he completed postdoctoral training in molecular carcinogenesis and cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Prior to joining the UNC faculty in 2014, Prof Hursting was Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, the McKean-Love Endowed Chair of Nutritional, Molecular and Cellular Sciences in the UT College of Natural Sciences, and Professor of Molecular Carcinogenesis at the UT-MD Anderson Cancer Center (2005–14).
He previously served as Chief of the NCI’s Nutrition and Molecular Carcinogenesis Laboratory Section and Deputy Director of the NCI’s Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (1999–05). His research interests centre on precision nutrition as applied to cancer prevention, particularly the molecular and metabolic mechanisms underlying obesity- cancer associations, and the interplay between obesity, metabolism, host genetics and cancer.
Primarily using pre-clinical models (including human and mouse cell lines and organoids, genetically engineered mouse models of cancer, and genetically heterogeneous collaborative cross mice) in parallel with human studies, his lab is currently focusing on the molecular and metabolic changes occurring in response to lifestyle-based (dietary and physical activity); surgical (bariatric surgery), or pharmacologic manipulation of energy metabolism and cell signalling pathways.
Dr Dieuwertje Kok, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Dieuwertje Kok received her MSc degree in Medical Biology from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD on the role of nutrition and clinical factors in relation to prostate cancer risk and recurrence from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
A research exchange to the laboratory of Prof Mathers at Newcastle University in the UK fuelled her interest in cancer epigenetics. Her postdoctoral work focused on biological mechanisms relevant to risk, progression and treatment of colorectal cancer.
Currently, Dieuwertje works as an assistant professor at the Division of Human Nutrition and Health of Wageningen University where she studies the role of nutrition before and during cancer treatment, with a strong link to cancer research in clinical practice.
Her passion for cancer research is characterised by a specific interest in colorectal and paediatric cancer, gut health, epigenetics, folate metabolism and cytotoxic cancer treatments.
Dr Fred Tabung, The Ohio State University, US
I am an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Comprehensive Cancer Center, where I study metabolic dysregulation as a major mediator of the role of diet in cancer risk and prognosis.
My group has developed and applied novel dietary indices to assess the influence of dietary patterns on chronic systemic inflammation and insulin hypersecretion, and the role of these biological domains of the diet in obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
This work has provided novel insights including the importance of the food matrix, fat content of food and non-caloric food components on circulating biomarkers that are relevant to cancer risk and prognosis.
Prior to joining the faculty at The Ohio State University, I completed my postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, doctoral programme at the University of South Carolina, and undergraduate programme at the University of Buea, Cameroon.
Prof Suzanne Turner, University of Cambridge, UK
Suzanne obtained her PhD from the world-renowned Paterson Institute for Cancer Research and the Christie Hospital in Manchester where she examined the potential toxic side-effects of chemoprotective gene therapy. This work was a collaborative effort with what was at that time the AstraZeneca Central Toxicology Labs at Alderley Edge.
Following this training period Suzanne moved to a research post at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge where, under the guidance of Dr Denis Alexander, she began to investigate mechanisms of lymphomagenesis, a subject that she has pursued to become a world-expert in paediatric lymphomas, specifically anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL).
For the past 17 years, Suzanne has been leading an academic research group at the University of Cambridge within the Department of Pathology and based at the Addenbrooke’s Hospital campus in Cambridge. It’s here that Suzanne conducts academic research of an international standard, and teaches and examines aspects of the medical, veterinary and natural science tripos. Suzanne is also the director of postgraduate education in the Department of Pathology.
In 2007, Suzanne was awarded the prestigious Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research (now Blood Cancer UK) Bennett Fellowship and in 2012 a further 5-year senior lectureship award.
Among her achievements are the inception and establishment of the European Research Initiative on ALCL, a study group that brings together scientists from across Europe to foster collaboration and advancement in this important area of health research.
Suzanne was also the lead of ALKATRAS, an EU Marie Curie Innovative Training Network of 14 research groups in 7 EU countries and is currently non-clinical chair of the European Inter-Group for Collaboration into Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (EICNHL), co-chair of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Cambridge Centre Paediatric Programme, and biological lead for the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) paediatric lymphoma Clinical Study Group (CSG).
Suzanne collaborates with a wide array of scientists and labs around the world, most notably the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala with whom she is working towards finding better therapies for children with cancer.
Among her other interests, Suzanne is the scientific adviser to the Alex Hulme Foundation and Francesca Richardson Trust. She is also a member of both the American and British Associations for Cancer Research (BACR/AACR), the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) in the UK and the International Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOP). Suzanne also sits on the scientific committee of the European arm of SIOP, the MHRA plastics, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery (PRASEAG) committee and the European Commission’s scientific committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) working group on breast implants and cancer. In addition, she is a member of the international grant review panels of the World Cancer Research Fund and the Swedish Research Council’s medicine and health review panel.
Dr Zdenko Herceg, IARC, France
Dr Zdenko Herceg has an international reputation as the leader in the application of epigenetic/epigenomic analyses to mechanistic and profiling studies of carcinogenesis and discovery of biomarkers of environmental exposures and cancer risk.
He is currently Head of Branch of Epigenomics and Mechanisms at International Agency for Research on Cancer (Lyon, France). Prior to joining IARC (1997), he was a postdoctoral scientist at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria.
He earned his PhD (in 1995) from the University of St Andrews (UK) in the field of oncogenic transformation of human epithelial cells. Dr Herceg has developed and co-ordinated multidisciplinary projects involving epigenomics and mechanistic studies involving international population-based studies. These include major initiatives for international interdisciplinary collaborations (funded by major international and national funding agencies).
These studies lead to conceptual breakthroughs and major advances in understanding molecular causes of tumorigenesis and to discovery of powerful molecular biomarkers relevant to cancer causation and opened new avenues for research in this emerging field.
Dr Herceg authored more than 200 original peer-reviewed research publications in the field of epigenetics and cancer research
Dr Lee Jones, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, US
Dr Lee Jones is a Member and Attending Physiologist in the Department of Medicine and Director of the Exercise Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).
Dr Jones completed his PhD and postdoctoral fellowship in Exercise Oncology at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). His research programme focuses on a translational approach to the investigation of exercise on cancer pathogenesis.
He has published numerous scientific articles and his work is supported by the National Institutes of Health and AKTIV Against Cancer
Dr Richard Simpson, University of Arizona, US
Dr Simpson is a full Professor in the School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) at the University of Arizona and holds joint appointments in Pediatrics (College of Medicine), Immunobiology (College of Medicine), the Arizona Cancer Center and the Bio5 Institute.
His research is concerned with the effects of exercise on the immune system in the context of cancer, ageing and human performance.
Major focus areas include understanding:
He is president-elect of the International Society of Exercise Immunology (ISEI), a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and sits on the editorial boards of the following journals: Brain, Behavior and Immunity; Exercise Immunology Reviews (Associate Editor), and Immunity and Ageing.
Dr Simpson has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and served as the primary mentor for >20 PhD students and postdoctoral scientists. His current/recent research is supported by NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and industry.
This work aims to ensure that our Cancer Prevention Recommendations relating to obesity remain up to date, with the potential to develop more specific recommendations.
> Chair of the Obesity Expert Committee: Prof Jaap Seidell
Dr Michael Pollak, US
Dr Pollak is a tenured Professor in the Department of Oncology at McGill University in Montreal and holds the Alexander-Goldfarb Research Chair. His medical education was at McGill, and postgraduate specialist training in Oncology was at the University of Toronto.
He practices medical oncology at the Jewish General Hospital, and also leads laboratory and population-based research programmes. He heads the Division of Cancer Prevention at the Department of Oncology at McGill and the Stroll Cancer Prevention Centre at the Jewish General Hospital.
Dr Pollak has published more than 500 scientific papers with a total of over 42,500 citations, and an H-index is 120, placing him in the top 10% of researchers in terms of citations and research impact.
He collaborates widely with researchers around the world and has received more than $25m in peer-reviewed funding. In 2012, he was awarded the Aisenstadt Award for Academic Achievement by McGill/JGH faculty and the Harold Warwick Prize by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute.
In 2018, he was appointed co-Editor-in-Chief, Cancer Prevention Research by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and elected to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) the following year. He also is co-Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Metabolism, a specialty journal published by Springer Nature.
His research focuses on the intersection of oncology, endocrinology and metabolism, and he employs a multidisciplinary approach, using both laboratory and population methods.
Dr Tanya Agurs-Collins, National Cancer Institute, US
Dr Tanya Agurs-Collins is a Program Director in the Behavioral Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute (NCI).
She is responsible for directing, co-ordinating and managing a research grant portfolio in obesity, diet and weight loss interventions for cancer prevention and control. Dr Agurs-Collins’ research focuses on racial/ethnic disparities in obesity and diet on cancer risk and survival.
Dr Agurs-Collins has a PhD in Nutritional Sciences with an emphasis in epidemiology and an MS in Public Health Nutrition from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
She is a registered dietitian with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and a member of The Obesity Society and the American Society for Nutrition.
Prof John Reilly, University of Strathclyde, UK
John Reilly is Professor in Physical Activity and Public Health Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. He was previously Professor of Paediatric Energy Metabolism, University of Glasgow.
His research group carries out epidemiological and physiological work that focuses on childhood obesity globally: diagnosis; surveillance; causes; health and non-health consequences (eg cognition and academic attainment); prevention; treatment.
He has more than 340 peer-reviewed papers and is highly cited: mean field-weighted citation impact for all papers = 3.25; August 2020 h index in Scopus= 65, h index Google Scholar =83.Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2011-), top 0.1% cited researcher in Science & Social Science, Cross-Field.
He has national and international leadership responsibilities. These include chairing the UK Health Depts Physical Activity Guideline Development Group for the Early Years 2010–11 and 2017–19.
He was a member of the WHO Working Group on Science and Evidence for Ending Childhood Obesity, 2014–161 , the advisory group for the WHO Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative 2016–17, and the Guideline Development Group for the WHO Guidelines for Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour, and Sleep for the Under-5s in 20192.
He is an Executive Committee Member of the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance KE Project (2014–present) and an Executive Committee and Founding Member of the International Surveillance Study for the Early Years (SUNRISE), 2017–present.
Dr Paul Chadwick, University College London, UK
Paul Chadwick is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Honorary Associate Professor at the UCL Centre for Behaviour Change, and Co-Director of the NIHR DHSC Policy Research Unit in Behavioural Science. He works on the development of interdisciplinary approaches to research and practice in behaviour change.
Paul has been at the forefront of developing, evaluating and disseminating evidence-based approaches to obesity and diabetes management in the UK and internationally, and works on several large trials of behaviour change interventions funded by the CDC and NIHR.
As a clinical psychologist he has developed several scalable interventions for diabetes prevention and remission, which are implemented at scale through the NHS Low Calorie Diet and Better Health programmes. He has held senior leadership positions in the NHS, working as psychology lead for diabetes across north central London.
More recently he has been developing methods to integrate systems and behaviour change theory, and testing their application to transform complex systems such as those involved in energy, biodiversity, food and equality for individuals of Black and Minority Ethnicities.
Prof Tobias Pischon, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Germany
Tobias Pischon is a medical doctor and epidemiologist with a doctoral degree in medicine, a Masters in Public Health (MPH), and the facultas docendi (Habilitation) and the venia legendi in epidemiology and social medicine.
He is a Full Professor for Molecular Epidemiology at the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Head of the Molecular Epidemiology Research Group and of the Biobank Technology Platform at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC).
Past appointments include positions at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, and at the German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE).
He has been working as investigator on the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II, the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), and is among the principal investigators and member of the board of directors of the German National Cohort (NAKO Gesundheitsstudie).
Prof Pischon was stipend of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and received several awards from scientific societies. His research focuses on the impact of metabolic factors, diet and lifestyle on the risk of chronic diseases, particularly cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. His research results have been published in major international journals.
Prof Annie Anderson, University of Dundee, UK
Annie S. Anderson BSc PhD RD FRPE FRSE is Professor of Public Health Nutrition and Co-director of the Centre for Research into Cancer Prevention and Screening at Ninewells Medical School, University of Dundee.
She trained in nutrition and after 2 years clinical dietetic practice in Cambridge began an academic career. Following a PhD at the University of Aberdeen and research posts at the University of Glasgow and the MRC Medical Sociology Unit she was appointed to a professorial position in the University of Dundee in 1996.
Her research focusses on theory based, behaviorally focused, dietary and obesity (population and individual) interventions aimed at chronic disease risk reduction with a special interest in cancer prevention.
She has undertaken a number of international and national roles including: advisor to WHO International Agency for Research (IARC) on the development of The European Code Against Cancer; member of the expert working group on the Cancer Prevention handbook Absence of Excess Body Fat; Chair of the grant panel for The World Cancer Research Fund International; and member of the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).
