Research | Scientific Board

In Homage to Pr Janos Frühling (B) : Honorary Scientifc Committee Vice-President (1937-2015) for his high contribution to the development of ECERI.

Professor Janos Frühling, born 16 February 1937 in Budapest (Hungary), was Doctor of Medicine graduate from the University of Vienna, specialist in nuclear medicine and radiation therapy radium, and professor at the ULB Faculty of Medicine of Belgium. He was appointed Head of the Department of Radiation Oncology of the Bordet Institute in 1989. He was elected perpetual secretary of the Royal Belgium Academy of Medicine in February 2005, and in 2008, General Secretary of the "Federation of the European Academies of Medicine." He left us on the 28th November, 2015.

• Pr Luc Montagnier, ECERI's President (F)

Professor Luc Montagnier (born in 1932), Medicine Nobel Prize Winner 2008, is a prominent virologist whose contributions in understanding the nature of viruses lead to a significant advance in cancer research. Luc Montagnier is also known for discovering the HIV virus that causes AIDS. At the Institut Pasteur in Paris he devoted his career to the study of viruses. In the twenty years before the onset of the AIDS epidemic, Luc Montagnier made many significant discoveries concerning the nature of viruses. He made major contributions to the understanding of how viruses can alter the genetic information of host organisms, and significantly made advances in cancer research. His investigation of interferon, one of the body's defenses against viruses, opened major avenues for medical treatments for viral diseases. Luc Montagnier's ongoing research focuses on the search for an AIDS vaccine or cure.

• Tony Tweedale (US), Secretary of the ECERI Scientific Committee.

Founder of R.I.S.K. Consultancy (Rebutting Industry Science with Knowledge) in 2008, Tony Tweedale has graduated M.S.in Environmental Studies, University Montana (United States). His toxicity readings enable him to falsify the claimed safe chronic exposure dose in chemical risk assessments (due to the later's unscientifictoxicity test methods). He also consults for NGO such as the Pesticide Action Network-Europe (PAN-E), the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) in Brussels, and more recently ClientEarth in Brussels. He has authored in high-impact factor journals a handful of letters and peer-reviewed commentary relating to these problems.

• Dr Ernesto Burgio (It),

President of the Scientific Committee of the International Society of Doctors for Environment (ISDE). Born in Palermo (Italy) in 1953, graduate in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pavia – Italy, specialized in Pediatrics at the University of Florence, Dr Burgio was medical volunteer in Africa, in Romania, was member of the European Project Now Antigone, Consultant in Pediatrics for institutions. President of the ISDE Scientific Committee, Coordinator of the Scientific Committee of ISDE-Italy he is also Member of the Italian Society of Pediatrics, of the Scientific Committee of ARTAC France (Association for Therapeutic Anti-Cancer Research) and the ENSSER (European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility). His studies deal with: DOHAD (developmental origins of health and diseases), epigenetic/neo-lamarckian models of carcinogenesis, environmental carcinogenesis and neo-lamarckian medicine.

• Pr Vincenzo Castronovo (B),

Professor Vincent Castronovo is a medical doctor, surgeon, graduate experimental Biomedical Sciences, Professor and graduate in obstetrics and gynecology. Since 1982, he leads two careers as a clinician and as a researcher in the field of oncology. After spending five years at the National Cancer Institute, National Insitutes of Health, Bethesda, he returned to the University of Liège where he founded, in 1992, the Research Laboratory on Metastasis. Director from 1995 to 2002, of the cancer screening center of the Province of Liège, he is particularly interested in the primary prevention of neoplastic diseases. In 1998, he became professor of biology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Liège and in 2000 the director of the Center for Experimental Cancer Research there (later the GIGA-Cancer). He is the author of over two hundred scientific publications and books, mostly in international journals of high level. His work has been recognized by numerous awards in Belgium and abroad.

• Pr François Fuks (B),

Pr François Fuks performed his PhD thesis at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg on the regulation of the parvoviral early promoter activity. Next, he joined the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, where he initiated his work on the intimate link between DNA methylation and chromatin modifications.  He pursued his studies in the Faculty of Medicine, Free University of Brussels and is currently Director of the laboratory of Cancer Epigenetics, at the Faculty of Medicine, Free University of Brussels.

• Dr David Gee (Dk),

David has worked for 36 years at the science/policy interface of occupational and environmental risk assessment and reduction, with UK Trade Unions: with the environmental NGO, Friends of the Earth, where he was Director; and, since December 1995, with the European Environment Agency, an EU environmental information providing body in Copenhagen, where he is Senior Adviser, for Science, Policy, Emerging Issues in the Integrated Environmental Assessment Programme. He has published reports and peer reviewed articles and lectured on several issues, including Scientific Uncertainty; the Precautionary Principle; Environmental Health; Environmental Taxes and Ecological Tax Reform; Clean production/ Eco-efficiency; Endocrine disrupting chemicals; Electromagenetic fields etc. He is initiator, co-editor and contributor to the widely cited and used EEA report, “Late Lessons from Early Warnings: the Precautionary Principle 1898- 2000” (2001) which has now evolved into vol. 2 & 3 (EEA, 2013).

• Pr Livio Giuliani (I),

• Dr Philippe Irigaray (F),

Doctor of Science in Biochemistry, awarded for his thesis entitled "Effect of benzo [a] pyrene on lipolysis in vitro and in vivo” by the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine, Philippe Irigaray is one of the forerunners of the links between pollution and obesity. Through his knowledge in physiology, metabolic syndrome and cancer, he joined ARTAC (Association pour la Recherche Thérapeutique Anti-Cancéreuse) as scientific research coordinator. Since then he has co-authored numerous articles with Professor Dominique Belpomme in peer-review journals and was selected by the GRePEC (Groupe de Recherches et de Prévention sur l’environnement – cancer), a Quebec government issued group through which he supports research on environmental causes of cancer, as an expert in the field of environmental health.

• Pr Gérard Ledoigt (F),
  

Graduate University Paris 11, Science Faculty of Orsay: License of Chemistry-Physiology (1966) CES of Genetics (1967). Master in Microbiology (1968). State Doctor of Natural Sciences (1976). Professor since 1983 at University Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand. Dean of Faculty of Sciences, (1986-1990). Chairman of Biology Department (1995-1999). Head of "ERTAC" Tumors and Cell Self-Control Laboratory (2000-2008). President of the French Society of Plant Physiology (SFPV / SFBV, 1994-1996).

• Pr Marcel Roberfroid (B)

PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Emeritus Professor (UCL) since 1999. Past academic and scientific charges : Professor of Biochemistry, Toxicology, Experimental Toxicology of Food and Nutrition. Past head and senior member of the Research Unit of Biochemical Toxicology and Cancerology, Catholic University of Louvain. Past member of the Executive Committe of the « European Association for Cancer Research » (EACR), past president of ILSI-Europe and past member of the board of trustees of ILSI-International.