Paolo Vineis

Paolo Vineis is a Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at Imperial College, London (https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/p.vineis/about).

Career Vineis is a leading researcher in molecular epidemiology, non-communicable diseases, and the effects of climate change on health. He has been a pioneer in the advancement of molecular epidemiology, by developing original approaches to strengthening causality, with the use of molecular adducts (paper 1 of 10 selected papers below), gene-environment interactions (1) and epigenetic markers in large longitudinal studies (2). More recently he developed the “exposome” concept, applying omic technologies to epidemiology (3, 4), that led to Vineis being awarded a grant from the European Commission (Seventh Framework Programme) in 2012 on exposome research (EXPOsOMICS). The exposome refers to the totality of internal and external exposures which interact at a cellular and systems level to generate a metabolic/ molecular signature which can be used to gain new understanding of the transition from health to disease. Vineis was the coordinator of the Horizon 2020 Lifepath project, whose aim was to understand the determinants of diverging ageing pathways among individuals belonging to different socio-economic groups. This was achieved by integrating social science approaches (5) with biology, using omic measurements (particularly epigenomics). Omics include the quantitative measurement of global sets of molecules in biological samples using high-throughput techniques; in particular, the study of epigenomic changes in DNA, pioneened by Vineis (2, 4), is currently one of the most promising fields for the identification of long-term environmental fingerprints. Vineis led 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/). Vineis is active in the field of climate change and health (6). In particular, he has contributed significantly to showing the impacts of climate change in Bangladesh, with publications on salinity of drinking water and blood pressure (7). This led recently to adaptation interventions in collaboration with ICDDR,B, the main research institution of Bangladesh.

International collaborations Vineis has created or participated in large networks of international relationships since his early work in molecular epidemiology, when he was a visiting scientist at the National Cancer Institute (USA) in 1986-87, MIT (Boston) and Columbia University. The development of the concept of exposome in the early 2000s involved collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the Berkeley University. Vineis has worked extensively with IARC (member of the Scientific Council and Ethics Committee; collaboration with the development of guidelines for causal assessment in the IARC Monographs on the carcinogenicity of human exposures). He has collaborated with the US National Academy of Sciences (“Using 21st century science to improve risk-related evaluations”, US NAS 2017, where he contributed chapters on molecular epidemiology). Thanks to multiple collaborations Vineis is ranked in the top 10 most cited Imperial College scientists with more than 180,000 citations. He has more than 1,200 publications (many as leading author) in journals such as Nature, Science, Lancet, Lancet Oncology. Recent collaborations related to the European grants mentioned above and other grants include ISGlobal (Barcelona), INSERM, Sorbonne University, the Utrecht, Dublin and other Universities. Vineis has been Adjunct Professor of Molecular Epidemiology at Columbia University (New York) and is currently Adjunct Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London.

Impact on society Vineis work has had an impact on wider society in multiple ways. His studies on risk factors for cancer (papers 2, 7) and the IARC Monographs he has contributed to have been cited extensively and used for policy interventions (in particular for bans of smoking in public places and setting of limits for air pollution). He has worked on inequalities in health within the Lifepath consortium and in policy-making contexts (5), and has contributed to studying inequalities in cancer care (8). He is committed to science communication, particularly in Italy with several popular science books (see below, including Health without Borders, Springer, 2017), participation in science fairs (like the Science Festival in Genova in each of the last five years). He was the senior author of the analysis of mathematical models for risk prediction and policy-making that appeared in Nature in 2022 (10). Vineis is involved in advice to policy-makers. In 2005-2012 he was a member of the Committee on carcinogenicity of chemicals of the UK Department of Health. He has given advice to the Italian Ministry of Health. For the latter he has been vice-President of the National Board of Health (Consiglio Superiore di Sanità) that involved giving advice to the Minister of Health during the COVID-19 epidemic and on other issues. He is a member of evaluation panels of the EU (ERC) and of funding agencies in Italy, UK, and France. He is a Fellow of the Italian Academy of Sciences (Lincei)(https://www.lincei.it/it). For the latter he coordinated a working group that led to guidelines for preparedness to pandemics (https://www.lincei.it/sites/default/files/documenti/ANL_Comm_Covid_19_Pandemic_Preparedness_3april2023_EN.pdf). He represents Lincei as the Italian representative in S7 and S20, the scientific advisory boards of G7 and G20. From 2026 he is a member of EASAC (European Academies Science Advisory Council). In 2018 he was knighted for scientific merits by the Presidency of the Italian Republic.

Personal life Paolo Vineis was born in Alba, Italy, on 10 October 1951. Married (Cristina Savio) with a daughter (Sofia) and a son (Tommaso).

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