Dr Vitaly Smelov is a Scientist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization, IARC/WHO (Lyon, France). He is an M.D. and has a clinical background in urology and sexually transmitted infections, lab skills and experience in the implementation and assessment of cancer control programmes, holds CSc and PhD degrees in Medicine. Dr Smelov works in the field of cancer prevention and early detection that primarily focuses on low- and middle-income countries (implementation of screening pilots, monitoring, and surveillance of existing programmes).