Rate My Professor Bernard Stewart

Professor Bernard Stewart is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of New South Wales. He holds a BSc and MSc from UNSW, a PhD from the University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute with a Diploma in Law from the Legal Profession Admission Board. His research focuses on cancer research, particularly chemical carcinogenesis, drug action and resistance, environmental chemicals that cause cancer, and the causes of cancer more broadly. Research activities address the distribution of cancer in the community due to environmental factors, assessing the impact of lifestyle factors including tobacco smoking, occupational exposures, and pollution for cancer prevention. Immediate research concerns include risk communication and medico-legal approaches to limiting the impact of environmental carcinogens, addressing community concerns regarding cancer clusters, and providing usable information about presumed hazards.

Professor Stewart serves as Editor in Chief of Cancer Forum and holds memberships including the Council of the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia, the National Data Policy Committee of Cancer Australia, the NHMRC Working Party on Cancer Clusters, and the Lung Cancer NSW Oncology Group at the Cancer Institute NSW. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. Key recent publications include the 2025 paper 'The carcinogenicity of e-cigarettes: a qualitative risk assessment' in Carcinogenesis and the 2026 paper 'Historical parallels between harms of tobacco and e-cigarettes' in Cancer Epidemiology, both addressing vaping and cancer risks. Earlier contributions encompass work on red and processed meat consumption and breast cancer incidence, key characteristics of carcinogens, and cancer prevention as part of precision medicine. He has contributed numerous book chapters on topics such as the mechanistic basis of cancer prevention and cancer risk assessment and communication.