Mads Melbye is a Danish medical doctor and scientist. He earned his M.D. degree from University of Aarhus, Denmark, in 1983, and a DMSc degree from the same university in 1988. His thesis work was partly done as a fellow in the epidemiology program 1985-1986 at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, US. After clinical training he became senior investigator in 1989 at the Danish Cancer Registry in Copenhagen, and in 1991 state epidemiologist at Statens Serum Institut (SSI) in Copenhagen. In 1992, Melbye was given a personal chair in infectious disease and cancer epidemiology by the Danish minister for research and education. He founded the Department of Epidemiology Research at SSI and to day this department is one of Europe's largest epidemiologic research milieus. From 1998 to 2008 he was fo