BIOGRAPHY
Dr Tajima received a medical degree from the Osaka University. He trained in general surgery, anaesthesiology and surgical pathology for 7 years. Then he studied cancer epidemiology and prevention at the Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute (ACCRI). He got a fellowship award from the IARC and took the Master of Public Health course at the Johns Hopkins University in the USA. After finishing this course, he was promoted to the Section Head (1987) and Chief (1990) of the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention at the ACCRI. Since 2006 he has served as the Director of the ACCRI until now.
MOTIVATION FOR JOINING THE UICC BOARD OF DIRECTORS
I established a new entity of the Ethnoepidemiology of Cancer in 1996 and havepromoted ethnicity-specificcancer prevention strategies based on cultural backgrounds of ethnic groups in Asia. I have also established a large scale Hospital-based Epidemiologic Research Programme at Aichi Cancer Center (HERPACC) and challenged molecular epidemiologic studies to clarify gene-environment interaction for main sites of cancer. I have published 723 articles including 455 original papers and edited six books on cancer statistics and cancer epidemiology as example. I am serving the Japanese Cancer Association (JCA) as a member of the Board of Directors and held the 70th Annual Conference in 2011. My co-workers and I founded the Asian PacificOrganisation for Cancer Prevention in 2000 and I served for the last 12 years as Secretary General of the Asian PacificFederation for Cancer Research and Control. I contributed to promoting their continuous activities. I will be able to develop global cancer prevention strategies, especially in Asia. For the UICC, I served as the Chairperson of Programme of Epidemiology and Prevention in 2002-06, the Strategic Leader of Cancer Prevention and Early Detection in Asia in 2006-08 and the Task Force Member and Nominating Committee Member in 2008-10. Since 2010 I have contributed to the UICC as a member of the Board of Directors, promoting activities of the UICC in Japan as a Secretary General of the Japan Committee for the UICC which is consist of 30 academic and anti-cancer organisations throughout the whole of Japan.