Valerie Beral

Dame Valerie Beral AC DBE FRS FRCOG FMedSci (born 28 July 1946)[1] is an Australian-born British epidemiologist, academic and a preeminent specialist in breast cancer epidemiology. She is Professor of Epidemiology,[5] a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford and has been the Head of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and Cancer Research UK since 1989.[3][6][7]

Dame

Valerie Beral

AC DBE FRS FRCOG MRCP
Born (1946-07-28) 28 July 1946[1]
Australia
NationalityAustralian, British
Alma mater
Known forBreast cancer epidemiology[2][3]
Spouse(s)Professor Paul Fine[1]
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsEpidemiology
Cancer Epidemiology
Breast cancer
Women's health
Institutions
Websitewww.ndph.ox.ac.uk/team/valerie-beral

Early life and education

Valerie Beral was born in Australia on 28 July 1946. She completed her MBBS degree graduating with first-class honours from the University of Sydney in 1969.[8]

She then spent six months travelling the "hippie trail" through Asia of which she said "That taught me how much I wanted to work. But I still wanted to leave Australia."[9] She then travelled to England and successfully applied for a job at the Hammersmith Hospital.

Career

At Hammersmith Hospital, she worked under Charles Fletcher, who recognised that she was suited to epidemiology and so propelled her towards the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. There she completed a combined course in Epidemiology & Statistics in 1971–72 under the tutorship of Donald Reid. Beral felt very comfortable with the move because she had never felt happy in clinical medicine. She says that "she had never been able to understand how her peers could be so certain about making decisions on incomplete evidence. Epidemiology has offered her not an escape from that uncertainty, but the opportunity to tackle it head on."[9] She is a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

One of Beral's first epidemiological interests was the combined oral contraceptive pill because of work she had previously done in family planning. Beral moved on to other projects but this is an area in which the data have yet to provide support for her initial instinct that the contraceptive pill, like pregnancy, will eventually be shown to protect against breast cancer.[9] Later work included the effects of radiation, breast cancer trials and screening, AIDS, gene therapy, Hiroshima survivors, Chernobyl, food toxins, and much else. The British Medical Journal described her tally of jobs, publications, and committees as reading "like a checklist of the epidemiological causes célebres of the past three decades".[9]

Beral completed her training in 1972 and began working for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for a number of years. From there she moved to direct the Cancer Research UK Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford in 1989. Beral said of being offered the role: "One of the major deterrents when I was offered the ICRF job in 1989 was the thought of being so much in the public eye. It's not my nature."[9]

Beral has served on various international committees for the World Health Organization and the United States National Academy of Sciences. She also chairs the Department of Health's Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer Screening.

Million Women Study

Beral was one of the leaders of the Million Women Study[10][11] which was opened in 1997, and has recruited more than 1.3 million UK women over 50 via the NHS breast screening centres. The study is investigating how a woman's reproductive history can affect her health, with a particular focus on the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).[12] It is the largest such study in the world with one in four of UK women in the target age group participating.[10][13]

In August 2003, Beral's group published results showing that taking HRT increases a woman's risk of developing breast cancer with an estimated 20,000 UK women aged 50–64 having possibly developed the disease between 1993 and 2003 due to HRT use.[13] The study also showed that risk increases the longer a woman uses HRT, but drops to the normal level within five years after stopping use.[13]

Honours and awards
  • Donald Reid Medal  – in 2006 Beral was recognised by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for her ground-breaking work in cancer epidemiology and women's health, most notably through the Million Women study, as well as her earlier contributions to the School.
  • Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG) since 2000.
  • Honorary Doctor of Medicine degree of the University of Aberdeen in 2005.
  • Honorary Fellow at the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the University of Aberdeen since 2000.
  • Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) for scientific contributions to epidemiology.
  • Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) since 2009.[14]
  • Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.[15]
  • Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List "for eminent service to medicine and women's health through significant advances in cancer research and epidemiology, through seminal contributions to public health policy and as a mentor to young scientists."[16]

Personal life

Beral's work is based in Oxford where she has a flat. She also spends time in her house in north London, shared with her American husband, Paul Fine, who works at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.[9]

She maintains close links with her native Australia but "could not imagine returning to live there". Aside from concerns that Australia would hold little for her partner, Beral has also joked that "The population's too small!" to satisfy her needs as an epidemiologist.[9]

References
  1. "BERAL, Dame Valerie". Who's Who. A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc; online edn, Oxford University Press. 2013.
  2. Peto, R.; Boreham, J.; Clarke, M.; Davies, C.; Beral, V. (2000). "UK and USA breast cancer deaths down 25% in year 2000 at ages 20–69 years". The Lancet. 355 (9217): 1822. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)02277-7. PMID 10832853.
  3. "Jim Al-Khalili talks to breast cancer pioneer Valerie Beral about her Million Women study and why she thinks a so-called 'vaccine' should be developed to prevent breast cancer". Retrieved 12 February 2012.
  4. "Valerie Beral". Life Scientific. 2 February 2013. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  5. Archived 20 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  6. List of publications from Microsoft Academic
  7. "Valerie Beral". Google Scholar. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  8. An Interview with Valerie Beral
  9. Beral, V. (2000). "Of pills and ills". BMJ. 321 (7268): 1042. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7268.1042. PMC 1118846. PMID 11053172.
  10. Beral, V.; Million Women Study, C.; Reeves, G.; Bull, D. (2003). "Breast cancer and hormone-replacement therapy in the Million Women Study". Lancet. 362 (9382): 419–427. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)14596-5. PMID 12927427.
  11. Reeves, G. K.; Pirie, K.; Beral, V.; Green, J.; Spencer, E.; Bull, D.; Million Women Study, C. (2007). "Cancer incidence and mortality in relation to body mass index in the Million Women Study: Cohort study". BMJ. 335 (7630): 1134. doi:10.1136/bmj.39367.495995.AE. PMC 2099519. PMID 17986716.
  12. Beral, V.; Banks, E.; Reeves, G. (2002). "Evidence from randomised trials on the long-term effects of hormone replacement therapy". The Lancet. 360 (9337): 942–944. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)11032-4. PMID 12354487.
  13. "Who and what we fund : Cancer Research UK". Info.cancerresearchuk.org. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  14. ordinary fellows: professor dame Valerie beral - website of the Academy of Medical Sciences
  15. "No. 59282". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2009. p. 6.
  16. "It's an Honour". Itsanhonour.gov.au. 14 June 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
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