Sarah Darby
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Sarah Darby
| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|FRS|size=1--}}
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| birth_name = Sarah C. Darby
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| fields = Epidemiology
Statistics
Cancer
| workplaces = University of Oxford
Radcliffe Infirmary
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
National Radiological Protection Board
Radiation Effects Research Foundation
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| education = Imperial College London (BSc)
University of Birmingham (MSc)
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (PhD)
| alma_mater =
| thesis_title = A Bayesian Approach to Parallel Line Bioassay
| thesis_url = https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.452976
| thesis_year = 1977
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| doctoral_students = Helen Weiss
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| website = {{URL|https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/team/sarah-darby}}
}}Sarah C. Darby {{postnominals|FRS}} is professor of medical statistics at the University of Oxford.{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061127120000/http://www.hpa.org.uk/radiation/advisory_groups/agnir/members/darby.htm|archive-date=2006-11-27|title= UK Health Protection Agency entry|url=http://www.hpa.org.uk/radiation/advisory_groups/agnir/members/darby.htm|website=hpa.org.uk}} Her research has focused the beneficial effects of smoking cessation, the risk of lung cancer from residential radon,{{cite journal|last1=Darby|first1=S. C.|last2=Whitely|first2=E.|last3=Howe|first3=G. R.|last4=Hutchings|first4=S. J.|last5=Kusiak|first5=R. A.|last6=Lubin|first6=J. H.|last7=Morrison|first7=H. I.|last8=Tirmarche|first8=M.|last9=Tomasek|first9=L.|last10=Radford|first10=E. P.|last11=Roscoe|first11=R. J.|last12=Samet|first12=J. M.|last13=Yao|first13=S. X.|title=Radon and Cancers Other Than Lung Cancer in Underground Miners: a Collaborative Analysis of 11 Studies|journal=JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute|volume=87|issue=5|year=1995|pages=378–384|issn=0027-8874|doi=10.1093/jnci/87.5.378|pmid=7853419}} and treatments for early breast cancer.{{EuropePMC|ORCID=0000-0003-4046-0573}} She is also a principal scientist with the Cancer Research UK in the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU) and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford.{{cite journal|last1=Darby|first1=Sarah C|last2=Ewart|first2=David W|last3=Giangrande|first3=Paul LF|last4=Spooner|first4=Rosemary JD|last5=Rizza|first5=Charles R|last6=Dusheiko|first6=Geoffrey M|last7=Lee|first7=Christine A|last8=Ludlam|first8=Christopher A|last9=Preston|first9=F Eric|title=Mortality from liver cancer and liver disease in haemophilic men and boys in UK given blood products contaminated with hepatitis C|journal=The Lancet|volume=350|issue=9089|year=1997|pages=1425–1431|issn=0140-6736|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(97)05413-5|pmid=9371165|s2cid=20692603}}{{cite journal|last1=Darby|first1=Sarah C.|last2=Kan|first2=Sau Wan|last3=Spooner|first3=Rosemary J.|last4=Giangrande|first4=Paul L. F.|last5=Hill|first5=Frank G. H.|last6=Hay|first6=Charles R. M.|last7=Lee|first7=Christine A.|last8=Ludlam|first8=Christopher A.|last9=Williams|first9=Michael|title=Mortality rates, life expectancy, and causes of death in people with hemophilia A or B in the United Kingdom who were not infected with HIV|journal=Blood|volume=110|issue=3|year=2007|pages=815–825|issn=0006-4971|doi=10.1182/blood-2006-10-050435|pmid=17446349|doi-access=free}}
Education
Darby studied mathematics at Imperial College London (BSc) and mathematical statistics at the University of Birmingham (MSc). She completed her PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1977, where her research investigated Bayesian approaches to analysing bioassays.{{cite thesis|degree=PhD|publisher=London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London)|url=https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/search?q=A%20Bayesian%20Approach%20to%20Parallel%20Line%20Bioassay&rn=1|title=A Bayesian Approach to Parallel Line Bioassay|first= Sarah C.|last=Darby|date=1977|id={{EThOS|uk.bl.ethos.452976}}|website=jisc.ac.uk|oclc=1124248683}}
Career and research
After her PhD, she worked at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, the National Radiological Protection Board, and the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, before moving to the University of Oxford in 1984. Her major funder since then has been Cancer Research UK.
Darby and her team have demonstrated that there is a linear relationship between the dose of radiation delivered incidentally to the heart during breast cancer radiotherapy and the subsequent risk of ischaemic heart disease, and that the absolute size of the radiation-related risk is bigger for women already at increased risk of heart disease.{{cite journal|last1=Darby|first1=Sarah C.|last2=Ewertz|first2=Marianne|last3=McGale|first3=Paul|last4=Bennet|first4=Anna M.|last5=Blom-Goldman|first5=Ulla|last6=Brønnum|first6=Dorthe|last7=Correa|first7=Candace|last8=Cutter|first8=David|last9=Gagliardi|first9=Giovanna|last10=Gigante|first10=Bruna|last11=Jensen|first11=Maj-Britt|last12=Nisbet|first12=Andrew|last13=Peto|first13=Richard|last14=Rahimi|first14=Kazem|last15=Taylor|first15=Carolyn|last16=Hall|first16=Per|title=Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease in Women after Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer|journal=New England Journal of Medicine|volume=368|issue=11|year=2013|pages=987–998|issn=0028-4793|doi=10.1056/NEJMoa1209825|pmid=23484825|hdl=10616/41712|s2cid=31409740 |url=http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/803982/1/Darby%20et%20al%20NEJM%202013.pdf}}
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.{{cite journal |last1=Darby|first1=Sarah C|last2=McGale|first2=Paul|last3=Taylor|first3=Carolyn W|last4=Peto|first4=Richard|title=Long-term mortality from heart disease and lung cancer after radiotherapy for early breast cancer: prospective cohort study of about 300 000 women in US SEER cancer registries|journal=The Lancet Oncology|volume=6|issue=8|year=2005|pages=557–565|issn=1470-2045|doi=10.1016/S1470-2045(05)70251-5|pmid=16054566}}
Other topics that Darby has worked on include estimating the risk of lung cancer from residential radon, the risk of invasive breast cancer after a diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ, and the risk of cancer after computerised tomography (CT) scans in young people.{{cite journal|last1=Mathews|first1=J. D.|last2=Forsythe|first2=A. V.|last3=Brady|first3=Z.|last4=Butler|first4=M. W.|last5=Goergen|first5=S. K.|last6=Byrnes|first6=G. B.|last7=Giles|first7=G. G.|last8=Wallace|first8=A. B.|last9=Anderson|first9=P. R.|last10=Guiver|first10=T. A.|last11=McGale|first11=P.|last12=Cain|first12=T. M.|last13=Dowty|first13=J. G.|last14=Bickerstaffe|first14=A. C.|last15=Darby|first15=S. C.|title=Cancer risk in 680 000 people exposed to computed tomography scans in childhood or adolescence: data linkage study of 11 million Australians|journal=BMJ|volume=346|issue=1|year=2013|pages=f2360|issn=1756-1833|doi=10.1136/bmj.f2360|pmid=23694687|pmc=3660619}}
=Awards and honours=
Darby was awarded the Guy Medal in Bronze in 1988 by the Royal Statistical Society.[http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Honours/RSSGuyBronze.html Royal Statistical Society Guy Medal in Bronze], MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2019.{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190424061841/https://royalsociety.org/people/sarah-darby-14073/|archive-date=2019-04-24|author=Anon|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/sarah-darby-14073/ |website=royalsociety.org|location=London|title=Sarah Darby|publisher=Royal Society|year=2019}} One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: {{quote|“All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” --{{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161111170346/https://royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/|title=Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies|date=2016-11-11}}}}
References
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{{Guy Medal}}
{{FRS 2019}}
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Category:Academics of the University of Oxford
Category:Alumni of Imperial College London
Category:Alumni of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Category:Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Category:British women epidemiologists
Category:British epidemiologists
Category:Fellows of Green Templeton College, Oxford
Category:British women statisticians
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society