Maurice Bloch Seminar: Professor Mads Melbye

We are pleased to invite you to:

The Institute of Health and Wellbeing Maurice Bloch Annual Lecture Series 2017/18

Title: When an entire country is a cohort study

Presenter: Professor Mads Melbye

Date: 13 February 2018

Time: 1pm-2pm, a light lunch will be served beforehand

Venue: Yudowitz seminar room, Wolfson Medical School

Chair: Prof Jill Pell

Abstract:

The demands for very detailed, large and complete data in health research is rapidly growing. Denmark has a long tradition for building population-based registries. It has earned a preeminent reputation for possessing the most complete and interwoven collection of data touching on almost every aspect of life. What makes the databases a plum research tool is the fact that they can all be linked by a 10-digit personal identification number. Recently, a public-private partnership led to the establishment of the Danish National Biobank, which is an organization including a physical biobank with more than 6 million biological specimens, a biobank register that points to more than 24 million biospecimens in biobanks nationwide, representing 5.4 million individuals, and a coordinating centre assisting researchers in getting access to the specimens. Professor Melbye will present this incredible research infrastructure including many examples from his own research that takes advantage of the unique information in registries and biobanks.

Biography

Mads Melbye is Visiting Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, and President and CEO at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark. Previous positions at e.g. the National Cancer Institute, NIH, USA, before he became State Epidemiologist in Denmark, and later Head of Department of Epidemiology Research, Director of Division of Epidemiology, and most recently Director of Division of Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance and The Danish National Biobank, Statens Serum Institut. Previous academic positions as Danish Research Council Professor, NORFA professor, Foreign Adjunct Professor at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and Professor in Medical Epidemiology at Copenhagen University. He has written more than 550 publications (H-index: 81 (Web of Science) and is the Dane with most papers in high impact journals in general medicine (NEJM, Lancet, JAMA). He is associate editor of Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and editorial board member of several scientific journals.