Breast Pathology

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 Universityof Milan in 1986. She started her career as a consultant pathologist atthe University Hospital in Turin in 1984 under the supervision of Prof.Gianni Bussolati. In 1987 she accrued experience in experimental studies onpre-neoplastic breast lesions through a sabbatical period spent in the USA atthe Michigan Cancer Foundation and at the Columbia University. Upon herreturn to Italy, she set up her own cell biology lab working on effects ofhormones on breast cancer cells and mouse mammary gland organ cultures.Her research activity has always been paralleled and inspired by breast cancerdiagnostic pathology and her career orientation reflects this approach. In 1998Dr. Sapino was appointed Associate Professor and in 2005 full Professor ofAnatomic Pathology and Histopathology at the School of Medicine of theUniversity of Turin. From 2010 to 2015 she was recruited as Director ofSurgical Pathology at the University Hospital (Città della Salute e dellaScienza) in Turin and from 2013 to 2015 as Director of the Department ofLaboratory Medicine, then she moved to Candiolo Cancer Centre FPO-IRCCS(Italy) as Director of the Pathology Unit. This unit is recognized as trainingcenter for breast pathology by the European Society of Pathology (ESP). In2017 she became Scientific Director of Candiolo Cancer Institute FPOIRCCS,a private nonprofit institution endorsed by the Italian Ministry ofHealth for oncology research. In 2018 Dr. Sapino had also been appointedDirector of the Department of Medical Sciences of the School of Medicine atthe University of Turin (Italy). She has been member of the EuropeanWorkingGroup for Screening of Breast Pathology and coauthor of the EuropeanGuideline for Breast Cancer Screening. From 2014 to 2018 she had beenchairing the European Working Group of Breast Pathology of the ESP. Sheis member of the teaching staff for breast pathology of the European School of Pathology (EScoP). She serves as member of editorial boards of many scientificjournals and as reviewer for international grant proposals. She has beenlecturing at several national and international meetings. Her scientific worksare published in international peer-reviewed journals (more than 300 papers,H-index: 49). Over the years her scientific activity has focused on experimentaland clinicopathological studies on breast cancer, with the key mission totranslate 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 traineeposition in the 2nd Department of Pathology of Semmelweis University.Four years later, after the specialization exam, she became Assistant Professorin the same department. From 1992 to 1994 she was Research Fellow at theSouth 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 in2018. She has also served as a pathologist at the MaMMa Clinic, the firstmultidisciplinary breast screening center in Hungary, founded in 1992.Dr. Kulka was a member of the Mammographic Screening Subcommittee ofthe "For a Healthy Nation" program, took an active part in the establishment ofmammographic screening centers in Hungary in 2002, and subsequentlyparticipated in the regular external quality control procedures of the centers.She introduced specimen mammography as part of routine workup of screendetectedbreast lesions and assembled the first national breast pathologyguidelines that included a description of workup of screen-detected breastlesions. She is coauthor of the pathology chapter of the Hungarian multidisciplinarybreast consensus document. She has been teaching medical studentsfor more than three decades and breast pathology for residents inpostgraduate courses for the last 15 years. In 2002 she joined and became amember of the European Working Group for Breast Screening Pathology. Shecontributed coauthored chapters to the European Guidelines for Quality Assurancein Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis, to the second edition of theOxford Textbook of Oncology, and the fourth and fifth editions of the WHOClassification of Tumours of the Breast volume. Recently, she was invited toparticipate in the development of a dataset for the reporting of invasive breastcancer by ICCR. She is author of several breast pathology chapters in Hungarianpathology, oncology, and surgery textbooks. She is author of more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers and contributed lectures to more than150 national and international conferences. Dr. Kulka had been Secretaryand later President of the Hungarian Society of Pathologists, and a memberof the Executive Committee of the European Society of Pathology (ESP). Shehas been a member of the Pathology Council of the Medical College, Presidentof the Hungarian Division of IAP, and a member of the Advisory Board and theEducational Committee of ESP. Dr. Kulka has three grown-up children.