Eva Siracká

Eva Siracká was born on 1 May 1926 in Uherské Hradiště, Czechoslovakia but has lived in Slovakia since childhood.[1] She studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the Comenius University in Bratislava from 1945-1951 with a focus on cancer as she carried out her practice at St. Elizabeth Cancer Institute Hospital.[2][3]

After studying at university, she worked at the Oncology Institute in Bratislava.[4] She was the first woman in Slovakia to work in the field of radiotherapy as she was researching the oxygen effect on tumour cells and their sensitivity towards radiation.[2] She successfully defended her thesis in 1964.[2][5]

In 1969, she received a six-month scholarship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Later, she devoted herself to clinically oriented research at the Institute of Experimental Oncology of the SAS until 1991.[6] During her work, she also visited foreign workplaces and worked in Berlin for one year. In 1990, she founded the League Against Cancer in Bratislava.[7][8][9]

Siracká was the president of the League Against Cancer since its inception. In a 2016 interview, she jokingly said that "as long as the British Queen, who is my age, reigns, I will not be able to leave the Cancer League."[4] However, she stepped down on 31 December 2020, aged 93.[3]

In 2014, Siracká supported enshrining marriage in the constitution as a union between a man and a woman, pushed by the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), which would also prevent judicial extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples.[10] The KDH invited Siracká to present the proposal in parliament with their Chairman Ján Figeľ.[11] In June 2014, it was passed and signed into law by President Ivan Gašparovič, with 102 of the Slovakia’s National Council’s members voting for and 18 against.[12][13]

Siracká is considered as one of the 100 greatest Slovak according to a poll organised by Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS), which took place between October 2018 and May 2019.[14][15]

Siracká is famous for saying, "Human stupidity is worse than cancer."[16]

• 1983 National award for work dedicated to radiological research[17]
• 2000 Order of Ľudovít Štúr third class for long-term professional and scientific research activity in oncology with a focus on radiotherapy, and the main contribution to the creation of the League against Cancer and its activities[18]
• 2006 Woman of the 21st Century award for lifelong contribution to the representation of Slovak women in the world[19]
• 2006 Pribina Cross, first class, for significant merits and development of the Slovak Republic in the field of healthcare[20][21]
• 2011 Sasakawa Health Prize bestowed by the World Health Organization. She is the first European woman to receive the prestigious award[22][23]
• 2014 Bratislava’s Personality of the Year[24][25]
• 2015 European Citizen's Prize bestowed by the European Parliament[26][27]