Dr. Anna Sapino obtained her M.D. degree at the University of Turin (Italy) in 1982 and completed her residency in anatomic pathology at the University of Milan in 1986. She started her career as a consultant pathologist at the University Hospital in Turin in 1984 under the supervision of Prof. Gianni Bussolati. In 1987 she accrued experience in experimental studies on pre-neoplastic breast lesions through a sabbatical period spent in the USA at the Michigan Cancer Foundation and at the Columbia University. Upon her return to Italy, she set up her own cell biology lab working on effects of hormones on breast cancer cells and mouse mammary gland organ cultures. Her research activity has always been paralleled and inspired by breast cancer diagnostic pathology and her career orientation reflects this approach. In 1998 Dr. Sapino was appointed Associate Professor and in 2005 full Professor of Anatomic Pathology and Histopathology at the School of Medicine of the University of Turin. From 2010 to 2015 she was recruited as Director of Surgical Pathology at the University Hospital (Città della Salute e della Scienza) in Turin and from 2013 to 2015 as Director of the Department of Laboratory Medicine, then she moved to Candiolo Cancer Centre FPO-IRCCS (Italy) as Director of the Pathology Unit. This unit is recognized as training center for breast pathology by the European Society of Pathology (ESP). In 2017 she became Scientific Director of Candiolo Cancer Institute FPOIRCCS, a private nonprofit institution endorsed by the Italian Ministry of Health for oncology research. In 2018 Dr. Sapino had also been appointed Director of the Department of Medical Sciences of the School of Medicine at the University of Turin (Italy). She has been member of the EuropeanWorking Group for Screening of Breast Pathology and coauthor of the European Guideline for Breast Cancer Screening. From 2014 to 2018 she had been chairing the European Working Group of Breast Pathology of the ESP. She is member of the teaching staff for breast pathology of the European School of Pathology (EScoP). She serves as member of editorial boards of many scientific journals and as reviewer for international grant proposals. She has been lecturing at several national and international meetings. Her scientific works are published in international peer-reviewed journals (more than 300 papers, H-index: 49). Over the years her scientific activity has focused on experimental and clinicopathological studies on breast cancer, with the key mission to translate the achievements of basic science to the patient’s bedside.
Dr. Janina Kulka studied medicine at Semmelweis University, Budapest. After receiving her degree in 1982, she successfully applied for a trainee position in the 2nd Department of Pathology of Semmelweis University. Four years later, after the specialization exam, she became Assistant Professor in the same department. From 1992 to 1994 she was Research Fellow at the South West Regional Breast Pathology Unit of the University of Bristol, UK, under the supervision of Dr. J.D. Davies. She received her Ph.D. in 1999, became full Professor of pathology in 2008, and received her D.Sc. degree in 2018. She has also served as a pathologist at the MaMMa Clinic, the first multidisciplinary breast screening center in Hungary, founded in 1992. Dr. Kulka was a member of the Mammographic Screening Subcommittee of the “For a Healthy Nation” program, took an active part in the establishment of mammographic screening centers in Hungary in 2002, and subsequently participated in the regular external quality control procedures of the centers. She introduced specimen mammography as part of routine workup of screendetected breast lesions and assembled the first national breast pathology guidelines that included a description of workup of screen-detected breast lesions. She is coauthor of the pathology chapter of the Hungarian multidisciplinary breast consensus document. She has been teaching medical students for more than three decades and breast pathology for residents in postgraduate courses for the last 15 years. In 2002 she joined and became a member of the European Working Group for Breast Screening Pathology. She contributed coauthored chapters to the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis, to the second edition of the Oxford Textbook of Oncology, and the fourth and fifth editions of the WHO Classification of Tumours of the Breast volume. Recently, she was invited to participate in the development of a dataset for the reporting of invasive breast cancer by ICCR. She is author of several breast pathology chapters in Hungarian pathology, oncology, and surgery textbooks. She is author of more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers and contributed lectures to more than 150 national and international conferences. Dr. Kulka had been Secretary and later President of the Hungarian Society of Pathologists, and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Pathology (ESP). She has been a member of the Pathology Council of the Medical College, President of the Hungarian Division of IAP, and a member of the Advisory Board and the Educational Committee of ESP. Dr. Kulka has three grown-up children.
