ProfessorPaolo Vineis

Professor Paolo Vineis is Chair of Environmental Epidemiology at Imperial College, London. He is ranked in the top 10 most cited Imperial College scientists with nearly 151,000 citations (H-index 180, Google scholar).

His latest research activities focus on investigating biomarkers from omic platforms (including metabolomics and epigenetics) in large epidemiological studies. He has more than 1,100 publications (many as leading author) in journals such as Nature, Science, Lancet, Lancet Oncology. He is a member of various international scientific committees and the Ethics Committee at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, WHO).

Professor Vineis has extensive experience in leading international projects. He has coordinated the European Commission FP7-funded Exposomics project and the Horizon 2020-funded project Lifepath. He has been the director of the Unit of Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology at the Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, Torino, Italy and leads the “Molecular signatures and pathways to disease” (Exposome) theme of the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College (https://environment-health.ac.uk/molecular-signatures-and-disease-pathways/). He is engaged in policy-making as a member of the High Council of Health (Consiglio Superiore di Sanita’, advisor to the Health Minister) in Italy, and as a member of Cancer Prevention Europe (affiliated with Cancer Mission Europe). In 2020 he has been an advisor of the Piedmont Region for COVID-19 and has contributed to the development of mathematical models and containment policies (see Saltelli et al, Nature 2020).

He has contributed to the marriage between large population studies and new biomarker and omic technologies. The main breakthroughs have been (a) the demonstration of a number of molecular alterations (miRNA, metabolomics) associated with exposure to air pollution, able to predict disease outcomes according to the concept of “meet-in-the-middle”; (b) the development of biomarkers of smoking, including the first demonstration of a methylation signature, and mutational fingerprints; (c) the development for application in epidemiological studies of “biological clocks” based on DNA methylation and metabolomics to measure biological ageing; (d) the successful promotion of the interaction between social sciences and life sciences in a large consortium on health inequalities and ageing, that applied on a large scale omic technologies to social inequalities in health. He has also been active in the field of climate change and health, with original research conducted in Bangladesh that demonstrated an increased risk of hypertension in relation to salinity in drinking water due to environmental and climatic changes. He is Co-I at the NIHR Centre on non-communicable diseases in low-income countries, where he participates in mitigation actions of water salinity.

He has written several books, including philosophical books (such as "Nel crepuscolo della probabilita", Einaudi 1999; "Modelli di rischio", Einaudi, 1990); “Health without Borders. Epidemics in the Era of Globalization”, Springer 2017 (see also ); and "Prevenire" with Luca Carra and Roberto Cingolani, Einaudi, 2020

Positions and Employment
1984-1990 Adjunct Professor, Epidemiology, Post-doctoral School of Biometrics and Medical Statistics, University of Milano, Milan, Italy
1998-2005 Associate Professor, Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Torino, Turin, Italy
1999-2010 Head, Section of Epidemiology and Life Sciences, Foundation “Institute for Scientific Interchange” (ISI), Turin, Italy
2001- Adjunct Professor, Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
2004- Chair, Environmental Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, UK
2010-2021 Head, Unit of Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology, Human Genetics Foundation (HuGeF Foundation) – now Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, Turin, Italy
2017- Honorary Professor, Molecular Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
2019-2021 Visiting Professor, Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy

Professional Membership and Honours
1992-1994 President, Italian Association of Epidemiology
1995-1998 Member, Scientific Council, International Agency for Research on Cancer
2003-2019 Member, Italian Association for Cancer Research, Scientific Committee
2004-2009 Member, UK Molecular Epidemiology Group Advisory Board
2005-2012 Member, Committee on carcinogenicity of chemicals of the UK Department of Health (COC)
2007-2010 Member, Consiglio Superiore di Sanità, Department of Health, Italy
2007-2011 Member, Operational Committee Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London
2008-2013 Member, Ethics and Governing Council, UK Biobank, Wellcome Trust
2010- Vice Chair and then member, Ethical Committee, International Agency for Research on Cancer
2015-2016 Member, US National Academy of Science Committee on 21st Century Risk Assessment
2019- Vice President, Consiglio Superiore di Sanità, High Council of Health, Department of Health, Italy
2018- Member of the Academy of Sciences, Turin, Italy
2022- Chair, Scientific Panel for Epidemiology, Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale, Paris
2023- Member of Panel, ERC Evaluation Panel, European Commission
2023- Fellow of Accademia dei Lincei (Italian National Academy of Sciences)

Awards
2005 Distinguished lectures in occupational and environmental epidemiology: ” The integration of mechanistic data into the evaluation of environmental carcinogens”, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA
2010 Enrico Fermi Award for best Italian book on public understanding of science
2018 Knighted by the President of the Italian Republic for scientific merits