Name Nicholas Wald | Role Professor | |
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Prof. Nicholas Wald, UK, Folic acid&neural tube defects, journey of discovery & prevention challenge
Sir Nicholas John Wald (born 31 May 1944) is Professor of Environmental and Preventive Medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, part of Queen Mary, University of London. He is "widely considered one of the world's leading epidemiologists and neonatal health experts" and, together with Malcolm Law, is the inventor of the polypill.
His main research has been in antenatal screening of pregnant women for congenital malformations. In the 1970s, he showed that fetal neural tube defects could be detected by measuring alpha-fetoprotein in the mother's blood. This was the first example of screening for fetal abnormalities.
With epidemiologist Ian Leck, Wald wrote Antenatal and Neonatal Screening. The book won the Public Health Category of the 2001 BMA Medical Book Competition.
He has received numerous awards, including, in 2000, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Award for Scientific Research. Wald was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2004, and was knighted in the 2008 Birthday Honours for services to preventive medicine.