Prominent professor, researcher and academic Dimitris Trichopoulos died early Monday at the age of 76 from severe heart attack at Evangelismos Intensive Care Unit.

Born in the city of Volos in 1938, Trichopoulos graduated from the Medicine School of the University of Athens and continued his studies at the Universities of Athens, London, Harvard, and Oxford.

During his successful career, he served as Professor of Cancer Prevention and Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was also a Member of the Athens Academy and President of the Hellenic Health Foundation, Greece.

Dr. Trichopoulos served as Director of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention; Chairman of the Epidemiology Departments at the University of Athens Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health; and Adjunct Professor of Medical Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Dimitris Trichopoulos’s contribution to the medical research was invaluable, particularly in cancer. He authored or co-authored over 650 publications that include the first study linking passive smoking to lung cancer, influential work on the quantification of the association between psychological stress and coronary heart disease and key studies on intrauterine exposures in relation to breast cancer risk.