Elisabete Weiderpass elected new director of IARC

Professor Elisabete Weiderpass has been elected new director of IARC, one of the most prestigious positions in the international cancer field.

IARC announced that Dr. Elisabete Weiderpass was elected new director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the Cancer Research Institute of the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 17. Dr Weiderpass will take office on 1 January 2019. IARC Directors are elected for a five-year term and are eligible for one further five-year term.

I am grateful for this opportunity and I will do my utmost to ensure that IARC continues its important mission working for good public health and relevant cancer research. IARC is needed more than ever to tackle the global cancer epidemic that we face.

She points out that IARC has a long and important history as WHO's specialized cancer research agency for 50 years, and that the contribution to the knowledge of cancer has been very significant. And, although there are increasing numbers of actors and stakeholders in the cancer field, she believes that IARC still has a crucial role.

A true international herself, Elisabete Weiderpass, MD, MSc, PhD, is a Brazilian cancer researcher who is a naturalized Swedish and Finnish citizen. She is a Professor of epidemiology at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet, and a Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the Arctic University of Norway. She holds Adjunct Professorship positions in Cancer Epidemiology in Brazil, China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is a Visiting Professor in Kuwait. She is an expert in cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention and currently serves as leader of the Department of Research at the Cancer Registry of Norway, and of the Genetic Epidemiology Group at the Folkhälsan Research Center in Finland.

I am delighted to have been selected as the next Director of the Agency, and I look forward to bringing my expertise to IARC and contributing to the important work of the Agency.