Professor Umberto Veronesi

Umberto Veronesi obtained his M.D. in 1951 from Milan University, and after brief periods in England and France, he joined the Italian National Institute for Cancer Research in Milan as a volunteer. He qualified as a Professor of Pathological Anatomy in 1957 and a Professor of Surgery in 1961 at Milan University. He served as consultant pathologist and surgeon at the Italian National Institute for Cancer Research, and was the Scientific Director of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. He was appointed as a Minister of Health from 2000-2001. During his long and distinguished career, Professor Veronesi directed many cancer research programs and societies. He later resumed his position of the Scientific Director of the European Institute of Oncology, the President of “Science for Peace” and consultant to the Italian Supreme Health Council. In 2003, he established the Umberto Veronesi Foundation which aims to spread scientific culture and to provide free and rapid access to cancer research in Europe.

Professor Veronesi was the first to demonstrate that conservative breast surgery and radiotherapy, which leaves the breast intact, substitutes mutilating mastectomy and yet obtains the same cure rate. He invented the technique of quadrantectomy, thereby challenging the common belief among surgeons that cancers could be treated only with aggressive surgery. Since then, he has been supporting and promoting scientific research aimed to improve conservative surgical technique. He developed new research on sentinel node biopsy procedure to avoid axillary dissection when the lymph nodes are not involved. He also contributed to breast cancer prevention, conducting studies on tamoxifen and retinoids and verifying their capabilities to prevent the formation of carcinoma, and has always been an activist in many anti-tobacco campaigns.

Professor Veronesi published more than 600 papers as well as several textbooks. He served as an editor-in-chief of Surgical Oncology: A European Handbook and a co-editor of Oxford Textbook of Oncology. He was awarded many ‘honoris causa’ in Medicine and numerous prizes and medals. He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Medicine at University College Dublin, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Buenos Aires. In addition, he was an elected fellow or member of several major medical and scientific societies related to cancer research, including European and American Association for Cancer Research. He was also the president of several prestigious societies including the International Union Against Cancer, the European Society of Surgical Oncology, the European Society of Mastology, the Federation of European Cancer Societies, the International Society of Cancer Chemoprevention, Breast Cancer International, and the WHO International Group for the Study of Melanoma.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.