BIOGRAPHY
Gilbert Lenoir is Professor of Medical genetics. He is a Board Member (since 1998) and past President (2010-2012) of the “Ligue Française contre le Cancer” (the major French Cancer charity). He has dedicated his entire career to cancer. A scientist at the Interna-tional Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC – Lyon, France), and professor at the medical school, he was appointed as Deputy Director in charge of research at the Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif in 2000. Since 2010 he has been in charge of the Paris biocluster programme: Cancer Campus. He is the author of more than 400 articles in cancer genetics, epidemiological and translational research.
MOTIVATION FOR JOINING THE UICC BOARD OF DIRECTORS
My experience has been mainly research involving international collaborations: basic and translational, epidemiology always implicating public health issues. I am also a professor, a teacher and I have always participated in education programmes. My first20 years of professional experience was done at IARC in Lyon France: Burkitt’s lymphoma in central and North Africa,nasopharyngeal carcinoma in South East Asia. My basic research also required international collaborations mainly between European and North American teams. In 1985, I initiated international projects aimed at studying genetic susceptibility to cancer and then the International Consortium on breast cancer which leads to the identificationof the susceptibility genes. As director of research at IGR, we mainly launched European projects on translational research.As Board Member and President of the French Cancer Ligue, we reinforced our participation with UICC, to the European Cancer Ligue association and created the “Alliance des Ligues francophones, Africaines et Méditerranéennes” (ALIAM).My priority areas are: - Prevention: UICC representing the fieldof cancer must be at the forefront in the fieldof NCD’s, developing and implementing key measures. Tobacco control is a priority. We must support an ambitious programme on tobacco control and the implementation of a tobacco solidarity levy to finance it- Treatment: UICC must improve access to treatment worldwide by: training professionals where it’s needed, improving access to equipment, negotiating with companies for a better access to drugs.- Impact of UICC: Reinforcing the mobilisation against cancer in low and middle HDI countries including Mediterranean and African French speaking countries.