Sir Nicholas John Wald FRS, FRCP, FMedSci, qualified in medicine from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1967. He is currently honorary professor of preventive medicine, University College London, honorary professor, Population Health Research Institute,

St George's, University of London St George's, University of London (legally St George's Hospital Medical School, informally St George's or SGUL), is a University located in Tooting in South London and is a constituent college of the University of London. St George's has its o ...

, visiting professor,

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and honorary consultant and adjunct professor, Brown University, Rhode Island. He was professor of environmental and preventive medicine from 1983 to 2019 at

Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry , mottoeng = Temper the bitter things in life with a smile , parent = Queen Mary University of London , president = Lord Mayor of London , head_label = Warden , head = Mark Caulfield , students = 3,410 , undergrad = 2,23 ...

. He was co-founder and director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine. In the 1970s, Wald showed that fetal

neural tube defect Neural tube defects (NTDs) are a group of birth defects in which an opening in the spine or cranium remains from early in human development. In the third week of pregnancy called gastrulation, specialized cells on the dorsal side of the embryo b ...

s could be detected by measuring

alpha-fetoprotein Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP, α-fetoprotein; also sometimes called alpha-1-fetoprotein, alpha-fetoglobulin, or alpha fetal protein) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''AFP'' gene. The ''AFP'' gene is located on the ''q'' arm of chromosome 4 ...

in the pregnant woman's blood. He was the innovator of the “MoM”, or multiple of the median, a measure of the level of screening markers. He, with colleagues, first described the

Triple test The triple test, also called triple screen, the Kettering test or the Bart's test, is an investigation performed during pregnancy in the second trimester to classify a patient as either high-risk or low-risk for chromosomal abnormalities (and neu ...

(1988), Combined test (1998), Quad test (2003), Integrated test (1999) and Reflex DNA test (2015). In 1986 Wald showed that

environmental tobacco smoke Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called secondhand smoke (SHS), or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by persons other than the intended "active" smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke enters an environment, causing its inhalat ...

was a cause of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

and was a member of the US National Academy of Sciences Committee - the first public body that reached this conclusion. In 2003 with Professor Malcolm Law, he showed that

also caused cardiovascular disease. In 1991 Wald showed that folic acid supplementation prevented most cases of

s. In 1999, together with Law, he invented the

polypill A polypill is a type of drug combination consisting of a single drug product in pill form (i.e., tablet or capsule) and thus ''combines'' multiple medications (that is, more than one active pharmaceutical ingredient). The prefix "poly" means "mu ...

. He received, in 2000, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Award, was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

(FRS) in 2004, and knighted in the

2008 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 2008 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of the Queen's Of ...

for services to

preventive medicine Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis, consists of measures taken for the purposes of disease prevention.Hugh R. Leavell and E. Gurney Clark as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental hea ...

. In 2019 he was elected a member of the US

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wald, Nicholas 1944 births Living people British medical researchers British public health doctors Fellows of the Royal Society Knights Bachelor Academics of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry Medical doctors from London Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Members of the National Academy of Medicine