Professor Dame Valerie Beral

Professor Dame Valerie Beral was an epidemiologist, academic and a preeminent specialist in breast cancer epidemiology. She was Professor of Epidemiology, a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford and was  the Head of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and Cancer Research UK from 1989.

Professor Dame Beral was one of the leaders of the Million Woman Study which was opened in 1997, and recruited more than 1.3 million UK women over 50 via the NHS breast screening centres. The study is investigating how a woman’s reproductive history can affect women's health, with a particular focus on the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). It is the largest such study in the world with one in four of UK women in the target age group participating.

Professor Dame Beral served on various international committees for the World Health Organisation and the United States National Academy of Sciences. She chaired the Department of Health's Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer Screening.

Professor Beral died in August 2022.