Cassandra Coburn
Dr. Cassandra Coburn is a scientist, editor and author. She obtained her PhD in Genetics from the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London, UK. She joined The Lancet in 2013, where she was Deputy Editor at The Lancet Oncology. She left the group for two years to focus on writing but returned in 2020 to become the founding Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet Healthy Longevity. Cassandra has given talks on health in China, Japan, the USA and Europe, and has led multiple specialist commissions to address inequities in healthcare provision. A career highlight was launching a research programme for cancer care at the United Nations, alongside US President Joe Biden.
She writes for both academic and general publications, including The Spectator, The Observer and The Reader’s Digest. Cassandra is passionate about using science to inform and drive change in the world and believes that scientific knowledge can and should be interesting and accessible to all.
Dr Coburn’s first book "ENOUGH.: HOW YOUR FOOD CHOICES WILL SAVE THE PLANET" uses the seminal research published in 2019 – The Planetary Heath Diet (PHD) – to consider the changes we urgently need to make to improve our own health and the health of our planet. Published by Octopus in 2021, it was described by Thomasina Miers as ‘essential reading for anyone who cares about the planet’.