Lord Darzi to Lead Global Health Initiative

The pioneer of robotic surgery and former health minister Professor Lord Ara Darzi is taking the helm at the Imperial College London-based Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI), which aims to bring together world-leading academics, business and government experts to improve people’s health and reduce health inequalities in developed and developing countries.

Professor Darzi and his colleagues are credited with pioneering the use of minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgery in the UK. He has also helped develop new training methods involving the use of virtual reality to allow surgeons to practice their skills and has been heavily involved in World Health Organisation initiatives. From 2007 to 2009 he was Parliamentary Under Secretary in the UK Department of Health.

"Healthcare systems all over the world are facing completely different pressures compared with 20 years ago. Life expectancy has increased dramatically, lifestyle diseases such as obesity are rife, and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes are increasingly becoming a problem in developing countries as well as in the West. We can’t just build more hospitals or buy more beds; the whole way in which we provide healthcare has got to change. The world is crying out for low cost, high impact technologies that can be employed widely across the globe.” He believes that the IGHI will provide the platform that will feed major discoveries in medicine and engineering into policy that will have a global impact.

IGHI Deputy Chairman, Professor Guang-Zhong Yang added: "State-of-the-art technology does not have to be expensive, and innovation should not be just for the West," Professor Yang said. "Our challenge is to find common ground for innovation, so we can develop safe, effective and accessible technologies that can benefit people in both developed and developing countries."