Sir Nicholas Wald | |
---|---|
Professor of Preventive Medicine, University College London | |
Assumed office 2019 | |
Professor of Environmental and Preventative Medicine,Queen Mary College,London/Queen Mary and Westfield College,London/Queen Mary University of London | |
In office 1983–2019 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 31 May 1944 |
Occupation | Medical researcher |
Sir Nicholas John Wald (born 31 May 1944) is a British medical academic who is honorary professor of preventive medicine,University College London,honorary professor,Population Health Research Institute,St George's,University of London,visiting professor,University of Oxford,and honorary consultant and adjunct professor,Brown University,Rhode Island. He was professor of environmental and preventive medicine from 1983 to 2019 at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry,where he was co-founder and director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine.
In the 1970s,Wald showed that fetal neural tube defects could be detected by measuring alpha-fetoprotein in the pregnant woman's blood. [1] He was the innovator of the “MoM”,or multiple of the median,a measure of the level of screening markers. He,with colleagues,first described the Triple test (1988),Combined test (1998),Quad test (2003),Integrated test (1999) and Reflex DNA test (2015).
In 1986 Wald showed that environmental tobacco smoke was a cause of lung cancer [2] and was a member of the US National Academy of Sciences Committee –the first public body that reached this conclusion. In 2003,with Professor Malcolm Law,he showed that environmental tobacco smoke also causes cardiovascular disease.
In 1991 Wald showed that folic acid supplementation prevented most cases of neural tube defects. [3] In 1999,together with Law,he invented the polypill. [4] [5]
He received,in 2000,the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Award, [6] was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2004, [7] and knighted in the 2008 Birthday Honours [8] for services to preventive medicine. In 2019 he was elected a member of the US National Academy of Medicine. [9]
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes:coronary artery diseases,heart failure,hypertensive heart disease,rheumatic heart disease,cardiomyopathy,arrhythmia,congenital heart disease,valvular heart disease,carditis,aortic aneurysms,peripheral artery disease,thromboembolic disease,and venous thrombosis.
Haldan Keffer Hartline was an American physiologist who was a co-recipient of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision.
Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke,called passive smoke,secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS),by individuals other than the active smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke diffuses into the surrounding atmosphere as an aerosol pollutant,which leads to its inhalation by nearby bystanders within the same environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes many of the same health effects caused by active smoking,although at a lower prevalence due to the reduced concentration of smoke that enters the airway.
George Wald was an American scientist and activist who studied pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit.
Preventive healthcare,or prophylaxis,is the application of healthcare measures to prevent diseases. Disease and disability are affected by environmental factors,genetic predisposition,disease agents,and lifestyle choices,and are dynamic processes that begin before individuals realize they are affected. Disease prevention relies on anticipatory actions that can be categorized as primal,primary,secondary,and tertiary prevention.
Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub is an Egyptian-British retired professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Imperial College London,best known for his early work in repairing heart valves with surgeon Donald Ross,adapting the Ross procedure,where the diseased aortic valve is replaced with the person's own pulmonary valve,devising the arterial switch operation (ASO) in transposition of the great arteries,and establishing the heart transplantation centre at Harefield Hospital in 1980 with a heart transplant for Derrick Morris,who at the time of his death was Europe's longest-surviving heart transplant recipient. Yacoub subsequently performed the UK's first combined heart and lung transplant in 1983.
A polypill or single pill combination (SPC) is a type of drug combination consisting of a single drug product in pill form and thus combines multiple medications. The prefix "poly" means "multiple",referring to the multiplicity of distinct drugs in a given "pill". In precise usage,a pill is a polypill if it contains at least 4 drugs. An occasional synonym is combopill. A polypill commonly targets treatment or prevention of chronic conditions.
Sir Richard Peto is an English statistician and epidemiologist who is Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology at the University of Oxford,England.
Neural tube defects (NTDs) are a group of birth defects in which an opening in the spine or cranium remains from early in human development. In the third week of pregnancy called gastrulation,specialized cells on the dorsal side of the embryo begin to change shape and form the neural tube. When the neural tube does not close completely,an NTD develops.
Sir Michael Gideon Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. He is currently the Director of The UCL Institute of Health Equity. Marmot has led research groups on health inequalities for over thirty years,working for various international and governmental bodies. In 2023,he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Kyprianos "Kypros" Nicolaides is a Greek Cypriot physician of British citizenship,Professor of Fetal Medicine at King's College Hospital,London. He is one of the pioneers of fetal medicine and his discoveries have revolutionised the field. He was elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2020 for 'improving the care of pregnant women worldwide with pioneering rigorous and creative approaches,and making seminal contributions to prenatal diagnosis and every major obstetrical disorder'. This is considered to be one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine and recognises individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
A multiple of the median (MoM) is a measure of how far an individual test result deviates from the median. MoM is commonly used to report the results of medical screening tests,particularly where the results of the individual tests are highly variable.
Sir Andrew Paul Haines is a British epidemiologist and academic. He was the Director of the London School of Hygiene &Tropical Medicine from 2001 to 2010.
Sir Alimuddin Zumla is a British-Zambian professor of infectious diseases and international health at University College London Medical School,and a Consultant Infectious Diseases physician at UCLHospitals NHS Foundation Trust,London,UK. He specialises in infectious and tropical diseases,clinical immunology,and internal medicine,with a special interest in HIV/AIDS,respiratory infections,pathogens with epidemic potential and diseases of poverty. He is known for his leadership of infectious/tropical diseases research and capacity development activities. He was awarded a Knighthood in the 2017 Queens Birthday Honours list for services to public health and protection from infectious disease. In 2012,he was awarded Zambia's highest civilian honour,the Order of the Grand Commander of Distinguished services - First Division. In 2024,for the seventh consecutive year,Zumla was recognised by Clarivate Analytics,Web of Science as one of the world's top 1% most cited researchers. In 2021 Sir Zumla was elected as Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences. In 2024,he was elected Member of the prestigious Academy of Europe.
Joseph Warwick Bigger was an Irish politician and academic. He was an independent member of Seanad Éireann from 1947 to 1951.
Prabhat Jha is an Indian-Canadian epidemiologist currently working in the field of global health.
Douglas B. Kamerow is an American family physician,medical researcher,and medical journal editor. He is a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University and Senior Scholar in Residence at the Robert Graham Center. He is also an associate editor and regular columnist for the BMJ.
Natalie K. Walker is a New Zealand academic,and is a Professor of Social and Community Health at the University of Auckland,specialising in the reduction of harm from non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. She has an interest in smoking cessation but also researches on alcohol,cannabis and sugar.
Anthony David Smith FMedSci is a British biochemist and pharmacologist. Smith has spent his entire academic career in the University of Oxford. His research focuses on biochemical changes with disease and prevention. This includes co-founding the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing (OPTIMA). He is one of the leaders of international research to find ways to prevent dementia. He is also known for his work on the anatomical neuropharmacology of the basal ganglia.