Dr Parviz Ghadirian
His scientific career began early. In 1969,
after receiving his B.Sc. in Food and Nutrition Sciences from the
School of Food Sciences in Iran, he was appointed Director of the
Caspian Littoral Cancer Registry and Nutritionist on the Epidemiology
Team for Esophageal Cancer Studies in Northern Iran. These research
activities were collaborative projects of the International Agency
for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organisation (WHO)
and the Institute of Public Health Research (IPHR) of Tehran University.
In 1972, Dr. Ghadirian joined the staff of the Eppley Cancer Research
Institute in Omaha as a nutritionist. During his four years in the
United States, he received his M.Sc. in Medical Science (Human Nutrition)
from the College of Medicine, University of Nebraska, at Omaha.
In 1976, he returned to Iran and was appointed Head of the Babol
Medical Research Station and Director of Esophageal Cancer Field
Studies, including the Caspian Cancer Registry. His initial work
on the epidemiology of esophageal cancer was followed by surveys
on population food habits and nutrition, familial cancer of the
esophagus, esophageal cancer in domestic animals, opium use and
esophageal cancer, as well as several other epidemiological investigations.
Dr. Ghadirian redirected his career in 1978 and was accepted as
a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Cancer Research, Division
of Epidemiology, London University (U.K.), with a fellowship from
the WHO. He received his Ph.D. in Cancer Epidemiology in 1982.
In 1983, after a year of research on the epidemiology of cancer
in the Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Department of Community Medicine,
Oxford University, he joined the research group of the Montreal
Cancer Institute as Research Associate and Assistant Professor in
the Faculty of Medicine, University of Montreal. In 1986, he was
appointed Associate Professor (Research) in the Human Nutrition
Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke.
Dr. Ghadirian is currently full Professor in the Faculty of Medicine,
Department of Nutrition, University of Montreal, and Director of
the Epidemiology Research Unit of the Research Centre at the CHUM
-- Hôtel-Dieu. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Department
of Oncology at McGill University, as well as Associate Director
of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Nutrition Changes and Development
at the University of Montreal.
His main activities in recent years have concentrated on the genetic
epidemiology of cancer, the epidemiology of nutrition and cancer,
the epidemiology of AIDS, hypertension, cardiovascular disease,
multiple sclerosis, food habits and chronic diseases.
He has served as, and is an active consultant to, the IARC of the
WHO in Lyon, France, as well as its regional office for the Eastern
Mediterranean in Alexandria, Egypt. He is a Senior Research Associate
of the European Institute of Oncology, and has served as a part-time
Senior Research Epidemiologist at Health Canada (Environmental Health
Centre). Dr. Ghadirian is an Affiliated Scientist of the McLaughlin
Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment of the University of
Ottawa.
He has published more than 304 scientific articles, chapters, reports
and books along with 237 scientific presentations regarding his
research activities and more than 1,200 articles and columns in
different journals for the lay public -- in French, English and
mostly Farsi (Persian). Since 1989, he is the host of, and is responsible
for, an Iranian international television program on nutrition and
health. He is a member of the editorial board of several scientific
journals, and he was the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
of the Iranian Medical Journal for eight years, serving the Iranian
communities in North America.
Dr. Ghadirian has dedicated a large portion of his life to promoting
people’s health and wellbeing, particularly of the Iranian
community, through conferences, television, radio, and the print
media: journals and newspapers. His two recent books on AIDS and
Cancer Detection and Prevention in Farsi are well known and well
received among Iranians in and outside Iran.
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