Paul J van Diest has been a dedicated cancer researcher since the start of his career, obtaining numerous grants a.o. from the NIH and the Dutch Cancer Society. He studied Medicine, did his PhD and pathology residency at the VU University medical center (VUMC) in Amsterdam. After obtaining his Board certification in Pathology in 1996, he became Consultant Pathologist at the Department of Pathology of the VUMC. In 1999 he was appointed Associate Professor and in 2001 to full Professor. In 2003 he moved to Utrecht to become Head of the Department of Pathology at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) where he is currently still working. He is Adjunct Professor of Oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Oncology Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, USA. He serves on the editorial board of >20 international journals.

He has been active in the board as secretary and president of several international societies. He has published >900 papers in peer reviewed journals, personally supervised 87 PhD theses, and has an H-index of 97. The main theme of his research is finding ways for prevention, optimized diagnosis and cure of breast cancer, both the male and female forms. He is also active in the field of implementing digital pathology and AI.