Professor emeritus Martin Tammemägi of Brock University was presented the Brady McKee Award of Excellence in CT Lung Screening at the Rescue Lung Society 2025 Conference in Boston on 25th October 2025. This is the only award presented at this conference, which this year had 238 attendees from around the world.
Professor Tammemägi received a standing ovation when the award winner was announced by Dr. Andrea McKee who reviewed the accomplishments of Professor Tammemägi whose career in cancer epidemiology research spans thirty-five years and includes participation in multiple seminal trials including the following: Prostate Lung Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, the National Lung Screening Trial, the Pan-Canadian Early Detection of Lung Cancer Study, and the International Lung Screening Trial.
From 2016 to 2023, Tammemägi was Scientific Lead of the Ontario Health-Cancer Care Ontario Lung Cancer Screening Pilot and the Ontario Lung Screening Program. He developed the PLCOm2012 lung cancer risk prediction model, which has become the most widely used model around the world and is used to determine lung cancer screening eligibility in the UK National Health Service (NHS) Lung Health Check Program, the NHS Lung Cancer Screening Program, and in multiple Canadian provinces, including British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Tammemägi also developed a model that predicts the probability that a nodule detected on a Computed Tomography screening scan is lung cancer. This model known as the PanCan or Brock model is widely used around the world.
Professor Tammemägi is still active in cancer research. His recent and current works encompass co-leading several studies including:
- The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Delphi Study identifying Lung Cancer Screening Quality Indicators.
- The Terry Fox New Frontiers Program Project Grant in the Environment and Lung Cancer, Project 1, Air Pollution and Lung Cancer Risk – Prediction and Understanding Relationships.
- The IASLC Feasible Approaches for Lung Cancer Screening of People Who Never Smoked – the FALCONS Study
- Development of Bayesian Lung Cancer Risk Prediction Models for Indigenous Peoples in Australia and New Zealand.
