Sarah C. Darby is

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

medical statistics Medical statistics (also health statistics) deals with applications of statistics to medicine and the health sciences, including epidemiology, public health, forensic medicine, and clinical research. Medical statistics has been a recognized branc ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. Her research has focused the beneficial effects of

smoking Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted, and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, whi ...

cessation, the risk of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

from residential

radon Radon is a chemical element; it has symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive noble gas and is colorless and odorless. Of the three naturally occurring radon isotopes, only Rn has a sufficiently long half-life (3.825 days) for it to b ...

, and treatments for early

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

. She is also a principal scientist with the

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

in the

Clinical Trial Service Unit The Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU) is a medical research institute within the Nuffield Department of Population Health at Oxford University. It primarily conducts large scale clinical trials (phase III – Final Testing) and epidemiological ...

(CTSU) and

Epidemiological Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

Studies Unit at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, at the

Radcliffe Infirmary The Radcliffe Infirmary was a hospital in central north Oxford, England, located at the southern end of Woodstock Road on the western side, backing onto Walton Street. Closed in 2007, after refurbishment the building was re-opened in October ...

, Oxford.

Education

Darby studied

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

(BSc) and

mathematical statistics Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory and other mathematical concepts to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques that are commonly used in statistics inc ...

at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

(MSc). She completed her PhD at the

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public university, public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a constituent college, member institution of the University of London that specialises in public hea ...

in 1977, where her research investigated

Bayesian Thomas Bayes ( ; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian ( or ) may be either any of a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem Bayes ...

approaches to analysing

bioassay A bioassay is an analytical method to determine the potency or effect of a substance by its effect on animal testing, living animals or plants (''in vivo''), or on living cells or tissues (''in vitro''). A bioassay can be either quantal or quantit ...

Career and research

After her PhD, she worked at

St Thomas's Hospital Medical School St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the UK. The school was absorbed to form part of GKT School of Medical Education. History It was part of one of the oldest hospitals in ...

, the

National Radiological Protection Board The National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) was a public authority in the UK created by the Radiological Protection Act 1970. Its statutory functions were to conduct research on radiological protection and provide advice and information on ...

, and the

Radiation Effects Research Foundation The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) is a joint U.S.-Japan research organization responsible for studying the medical effects of radiation and associated diseases in humans for the welfare of the survivors and all humankind.Introduction ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

, before moving to the University of Oxford in 1984. Her major funder since then has been

. Darby and her team have demonstrated that there is a linear relationship between the dose of radiation delivered incidentally to the heart during

radiotherapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy (RT, RTx, or XRT) is a treatment using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer therapy to either kill or control the growth of malignant cells. It is normally delivered by a linear particle ...

and the subsequent risk of

ischaemic Ischemia or ischaemia is a restriction in blood supply to any tissue, muscle group, or organ of the body, causing a shortage of oxygen that is needed for cellular metabolism (to keep tissue alive). Ischemia is generally caused by problems ...

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina pectoris, angina, myocardial infarction, heart attack), heart failure, ...

, and that the absolute size of the radiation-related risk is bigger for women already at increased risk of heart disease. She and her team have also estimated the absolute size of the benefit of radiotherapy to breast cancer patients and their work is enabling comparison of the likely absolute benefit of radiotherapy with its likely absolute risk for individual patients. Therefore, it is now becoming possible to assess which patients can receive standard radiotherapy, which should be considered for advanced techniques, and which should avoid radiotherapy altogether. Other topics that Darby has worked on include estimating the risk of

from residential

, the risk of invasive breast cancer after a diagnosis of ductal

carcinoma Carcinoma is a malignancy that develops from epithelial cells. Specifically, a carcinoma is a cancer that begins in a tissue that lines the inner or outer surfaces of the body, and that arises from cells originating in the endodermal, mesoder ...

in situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in place' or 'on site', derived from ' ('in') and ' ( ablative of ''situs'', ). The term typically refers to the examination or occurrence of a process within its original context, without relocation. The term is use ...

'', and the risk of cancer after computerised tomography (CT) scans in young people.

Awards and honours

Darby was awarded the

Guy Medal The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Silver and Bronze medals are awarded annually. The Gold Medal was awarded every three years between 1987 and 2011, but is awarded bienni ...

in Bronze in 1988 by the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

.Royal Statistical Society Guy Medal in Bronze
MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive She was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) in 2019. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Darby, Sarah Academics of the University of Oxford Alumni of Imperial College London Alumni of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Alumni of the University of Birmingham British women epidemiologists British epidemiologists Living people Fellows of Green Templeton College, Oxford British women statisticians Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Royal Society British statisticians Female fellows of the Royal Society