Dr. Annie J. Sasco
Dr. Annie J. Sasco is an MD PhD who is currently team leader of Epidemiology for Cancer Prevention in an Inserm (NIH) research unit at the medical school of the Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2 University in France. After having been trained in the Bordeaux medical school, she went to Harvard where she got two masters and a doctoral degree in epidemiology, being for a while teaching fellow of Harvard University.
She then worked for 22 years at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, including 9 years as Group Leader and then Unit Chief of Epidemiology for Cancer Prevention and 2 years as Acting Chief of the Cancer Control Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO). The IARC is the specialized WHO agency dealing with cancer research and in particular having a programme for the evaluation and classification of agents according to their carcinogenicity. Dr Sasco is a European expert on the human health effects of growth promoters used in animal husbandry. She also holds Visiting Professorship appointments at the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, USA and at the Faculty of Veterinarian Medicine and Zootechny, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Having been described as an Òover graduatedÓ woman, she considers herself the positive mix of a European-American medical-scientific training having provided her with the background and expertise needed for carrying out sound, methodologically valid, yet innovative epidemiologic research, which she then translates to policy making individuals and institutions. Her major goal is to contribute to the inspiration and formation of future generations of scientists and citizens, including her own children. She is a convinced feminist.
She is the author of more than 400 publications including 128 included in Medline and has numerous editorial activities for several peer-reviewed journals. She is currently the member of many expert committees, scientific and other boards, as well as civil societies groups. She is co-founder and vice-president of the European Society of Environmental Health and a member of the Ethics and Philosophy group of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology. In 2005, she was one of the 1000 women nominated for the Peace Nobel Prize. A true citizen of the world, she speaks and works in French, English and Italian, with notions of German and Spanish.