Role and contribution

Professor Riboli is the overall coordinator of the EPIC project and is deputy coordinator of the InterAct study. He leads workpackage 1.5 and coordinates the database activities of InterAct.


Scientific profile

Professor Riboli has an M.D. degree (1977, Milan), a Master of Public Health (1980, Milan) and a Master of Science in Epidemiology (1982, Harvard, Boston, USA). Between 1978 and 1983 he was a researcher at the National Institute for Research on Cancer in Milan. In 1983 he moved to IARC-WHO in Lyon, where he undertook the task of developing new research projects in the area of nutrition, nutritional status and cancer. In 1989 he initiated the EPIC study, which eventually included 26 centres in 10 European countries. Questionnaire date on diet and lifestyle have been obtained from about 500,000 study subjects, and blood samples from most of them. He has contributed to the development of major international cancer research activities based on the integration of epidemiology and laboratory research. Over the past decade he has coordinated research projects based on EPIC into the role of nutrition, lifestyle, environment, genetics and metabolic and hormonal factors in the etiology of cancer and chronic disease. He has published over 240 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. In November 2005 he took up the post of Professor and Chair in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention at Imperial College London.