Eric Ding

As a teen, Eric developed a baseball sized tumor and was initially given only a few years to live. He not only defied the odds and survived, but dedicated his life to public health research and preventive medicine. Frustrated by the slow pace of new treatments and preventions, Eric partnered with Thalas to found The O Campaign for Cancer Research to spur the pace of innovation and develop new avenues in cancer prevention.

The O Campaign is currently comprised of 4.7 million registered members and was featured in Newsweek in 2007. Eric was previously involved with and credited as a whistle-blower in the drug safety investigation of Vioxx and related sister drugs that drew international attention. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he was recognized and named in the New York Times and USA Today. His two dozen published works have also received over 140 external citations in less than 3 years.

He also currently serves as an expert committee member on the World Health Organization's Global Burden of Disease Project. Eric received his BA, with election to Phi Beta Kappa and Honors in Public Health, from The Johns Hopkins University. He received his dual-doctorates in epidemiology and in nutrition from Harvard University, where he studied diabetes and cancer in an NIH-sponsored cancer research training program, and has taught and lectured in over 10 different courses at Harvard.

He is a 2008 recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship. He and his family immigrated to the United States when he was age 5 and grew up in the Great Plains and Pennsylvania. As a scientist, he currently works at the Harvard School of Public Health.