Flora Elisabeth Van Leeuwen PhD

Flora Elisabeth van Leeuwen was born in 1956 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. In 1981 she graduated (cum laude) from the Wageningen Agricultural University (MSc in Human Nature). In the same year she became head of the Department of Tumor Documentation, Clinical Trials and Epidemiology of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, with the specific task to start an Epidemiology Group in this institute. In 1982-1983 she was awarded a research training fellowship by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This period was spent to obtain a MSc degree in epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology of the School of Public Health of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, USA (Supervisor Dr. Philip Cole).

In the period 1983-1986, the Epidemiology Group of the Netherlands Cancer Institute quickly expanded, and in 1986 she became head of a separate Subsection on Cancer Epidemiology. This group is currently concentrating on two principal research lines: the etiology of breast and ovarian cancer, and the longterm health consequences of the treatment of cancer, particularly in terms of the risk of developing second malignancies, cardiovascular disease and infertility. Epidemiologic methods are combined with molecular analyses a) to examine gene-environment and gene-treatment interactions, and b) to differentiate risk factors for cancer according to specific genetic alterations in the tumor. In 1994 she obtained her PhD degree (cum laude) at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam (Thesis: Second malignancies as a sequel to cancer treatment). In 1998 she obtained a Chair in Cancer Epidemiology at The Faculty of Medicine from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.