LANCET COMMISSION ON GLOBAL ACCESS TO PALLIATIVE CARE
AND PAIN CONTROL (GAPCPC)
COMMISSIONERS
[JUNE 3, 2016]
Sir George Alleyne, OCC, MD, FRCP, FACP (Hon.), DSc (Hon.)
Director Emeritus, Pan American Health Organization
Adjunct Professor, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
Chancellor, University of the West Indies
Sir George Alleyne, a native of Barbados, became Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) on 1 February 1995 and completed a second four-year term on 31 January 2003. In 2003 he was elected Director Emeritus of the PASB. From February 2003 until December 2010 he was the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. In October 2003 he was appointed Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. He currently holds an Adjunct professorship on the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Alleyne has received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including prestigious decorations and national honors from many countries of the Americas. In 1990, he was made Knight Bachelor by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to Medicine. In 2001, he was awarded the Order of the Caribbean Community, the highest honor that can be conferred on a Caribbean national.
Rifat Atun, MBBS, MBA, DIC, FRCGP, FFPH, FRCP
Professor of Global Health Systems, Harvard School of Public Health
Director, Health Systems Cluster, Harvard School of Public Health
Visiting Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London
Honorary Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Rifat Atun is Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, and Director of the Global Health Systems Cluster. In 2006-13, he was professor of International Health Management at Imperial College London, where he led the Health Management Group and remains a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine.
In 2008-12 Professor Atun served as a member of the Executive Management Team of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Switzerland as the Director of the Strategy, Performance and Evaluation Cluster. Dr. Atun’s research focuses on global health systems, global health financing, and innovation in health systems. He has published around 200 articles, including in the Lancet, PLoS Medicine, BMJ, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Journal of Infectious Diseases and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
Dr. Atun has worked at the UK Department for International Development Health Systems Resource Centre as regional manager for Europe and Central Asia and has acted as a consultant for the World Bank, World Health Organization, and other international agencies globally to design, implement and evaluate health system reforms.
Professor Atun has served as a member of the Advisory Committee for the WHO Research Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan. He is a member of the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board, the UK Medical Research Council’s Global Health Group and a member of Advisory Board for the Norwegian Research Council’s Programme for Global Health and Vaccination Research. He serves as a member of the US of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine Standing Committee on Health Systems. Prof Atun studied medicine at University of London as a Commonwealth Scholar and subsequently completed his postgraduate medical studies and Masters in business administration at University of London and Imperial College London. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners (UK), and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK).
Agnes Binagwaho, MD, PhD
Minister of Health, Republic of Rwanda
Senior Lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth
Agnes Binagwaho, MD, PhD is the Minister of Health of the Republic of Rwanda. After practicing as a pediatrician for over 15 years, Dr. Binagwaho led the National AIDS Control Commission between 2002 and 2008. She then served as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health until 2011.
Dr. Binagwaho serves on many academic boards. Her engagements include research on health equity, HIV/AIDS, information and communication technologies (ICT) in e-health, and pediatric care delivery systems. She has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles, serves on the International Advisory Board of Lancet Global Health, the Editorial Board of PLoS Medicine and of Health and Human Rights: An International Journal, and contributed to multiple books. She chairs the Rwanda Pediatric Society, is a member of the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries. Dr. Binagwaho is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She also serves on the International Strategic Advisory Board for the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London.
Dr. Binagwaho received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Dartmouth College in 2010. In 2014, she became the first student to complete her Ph.D. from the University of Rwanda. She is active in advocacy and political mobilization on behalf of women and children, in Rwanda and worldwide.
Snezana Bosnjak, MD, PhD
Research Professor, Supportive and Palliative Care Physician, Dept. Supportive Oncology, Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia
Ms. Snezana Bosnjak, MD, PhD, Research Professor is a physician working in the Supportive Oncology & Oncology intensive care unit at the Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia. Dr. Bosnjak is devoted to integration of palliative & supportive care into comprehensive care of cancer patients. She has been actively involved in educational activities in palliative care; in efforts to improve the availability, accessibility and affordability of opioid analgesics and other drugs essential for PC; efforts to improve policy relevant to PC, palliative care research and in attempts to introduce the philosophy of palliative and supportive care into Serbia. Dr Bosnjak completed her specialization in clinical pharmacology, with expertise in the pharmacotherapy of symptoms of malignant disease and toxicities induced by anticancer treatment.
Dr. Bosnjak was a President, of PC Commission that wrote the National PC Strategy and its action plan (adopted 2009) and she also participated in the drafting of the National Program ”Serbia Against Cancer”(2009) for the topic: Pain, Palliative Care and Supportive Care. Dr Bosnjak is a National WHO Counterpart for Pain Treatment. She was awarded an International Pain Policy Fellowship directed by the Pain & Policy Studies Group (PPSG) (2006-2012). Prof Bosnjak was a member of the expert group that developed the WHO Policy Guidelines for Controlled Substances (2011). She was also a member of the Board of Directors of the MASCC (2007-2012). She is a leader of the International Palliative Care Leadership Development Initiative.
Download and read Dr. Bosnjak’s personal story from her page on ipcrc.net.
David Clark, PhD
Chair of Medical Sociology, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Glasgow
Visiting Professor, Institute of Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain
Professor David Clark is a sociologist at the University of Glasgow. He founded the International Observatory on End of Life Care at Lancaster University in 2003 and has wide ranging interests in the history and global development of palliative care. He has a particular knowledge of the life and work of Dame Cicely Saunders and has edited her letters and selected publications. He has been active in the global mapping of palliative care and has contributed to several regional Atlases, as well as the Global Atlas of Palliative Care published by WHO in January 2014. He recently completed a monograph on the Project on Death in America and is currently writing a book on the history of palliative medicine. He holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award for a study entitled Interventions at the End of Life, due to commence in 2015.
James Cleary, MD, FAChPM
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Hematology and Oncology Section), University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Palliative Care Physician, University of Wisconsin Health Palliative Care Program
Director, Pain and Policy Studies Group, WHO Collaborating Center for Pain Policy in Palliative Care, University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center
After graduating from the University of Adelaide Medical School, South Australia, Dr Cleary trained in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and then doing three years of opioid pharmacology research at the University of Adelaide. He moved to the UW in 1994, where he has developed a Palliative Care Clinic Program, from which he has recently stepped aside as Medical Director. He has global connections in Cancer Pain and Palliative Care, evidence by the releases of the recent Global Opioid Policy Initiative publications for Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, India, and the Middle East. He was a Faculty Scholar of the Open Society Institute’s Project on Death in America and the 2004 President of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He serves as a North American Editor of Palliative Medicine, the Research Journal of the European Association of Palliative Care. He has served as Program Director of Cancer Control at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. His current grant funding is from the National Cancer Institute’s Global Health Institute, the Open Society Institute and LIVESTRONG. He serves as the University of Wisconsin’s Principal Investigator for the National Institute of Nursing Research funded grant, Building a Palliative Care Research Network.
José Ramón Cossío Díaz, JSD
Justice, Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Mexico
Former Dean and Professor of the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) University School of Law, Mexico
Editor of the “Health and Law” Section of the Gaceta Médica de México
José Ramón Cossío Díaz was born in Mexico City in 1960. He attended Law School at the University of Colima, where he graduated with honors in 1984. In 1987 he completed a Master´s degree in Constitutional Law and Political Science in the Center of Constitutional Studies of Madrid (Spain) and in 1988 he received a doctorate summa cum laude from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Cossío started his professional career as a legal scholar in 1983. He has held teaching positions in several Mexican Law Schools, in addition to his tenure at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), where he was Dean of its Law School from 1995 to 2003.
His professional experience combines teaching, legal research and public service. Although the main focus of his work is constitutional law, he has also done extensive research and writing in other legal fields. He has supervised numerous dissertations and has delivered speeches, courses, seminars and conferences in national and foreign universities. He has authored 21 books, coordinated 4 and compiled 2. Dr. Cossío has also a variety of articles published in academic journals, law reviews, digests and newspapers.
He has received important acknowledgments and awards, such as the National Research Prize in the field of social sciences from the Mexican Academy of Sciences in 1998; the National Science and Arts Award in the field of history in 2009; the “José Pagés Llergo” National Communication Prize in 2010, and the National “Malinalli” Award for the advancement of the Arts, Human Rights and Cultural Diversity in 2011. The Mexican National Academy of Medicine granted him a special recognition in 2010 for his contribution to strengthen the relationship between law and medicine. In 2011, he was appointed as the first Distinguished Jurist in Residence at the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law at the University of Houston Law Center.
Dr. Cossío is a member of several prestigious academic, scientific and professional institutes and boards such as: the Mexican National Research System as a level III Researcher, the Mexican National Academy of Sciences, the American Law Institute, the Mexican Bar Association, the Advisory Council of Sciences of Mexico, the Mexican National Institute of Genomic Medicine, the Mexican Academy of International Law, and Mexico’s National Academy of Medicine —being the first lawyer to become a member—. On February 2014, he was inducted into Mexico’s Colegio Nacional. This organization is a public entity limited to 40 members-for-life at any one time which convenes the most accomplished minds in the fields of philosophy, sciences, and the arts to further the free exchange of ideas to benefit society. He also participates in the editing boards of several specialized reviews, both domestic and international.
Dr. Cossío was appointed Justice to the Supreme Court of Mexico in 2004, where he currently serves, while he continues his work as a legal scholar. He is also the editor of the “Health and Law” Section of the Medical Gazette of Mexico and writes a bimonthly column for “El Universal”, one of the major Mexican newspapers.
Liliana De Lima, MS, MHA
Executive Director, International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care
Liliana De Lima has an academic background in clinical psychology with postgraduate degrees in clinical psychology and health care administration; and a fellowship in pain and policy studies. Previously, Liliana held positions including coordinator and director of Hospice La Viga in Colombia and program director of international programs in the Palliative care department, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. She is a founder of the Latin American Association for Palliative Care (ALCP) and was President from 2004 to 2010. Since August 2000 she has been the Executive Director of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC). Liliana is a member of the WHO Expert Committee on the Drug Dependence and served in the WHO Committee on the selection and use of Essential Medicines. She serves as an adviser in several committees and is a board member of her family business in Colombia.
Paul Farmer, MD, PhD (Co-Chair)
Co-Founder and Chief Strategist, Partners In Health
Kolokotrones University Professor, Harvard University
Chair, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
United Nations Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on Community-Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti
Medical anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer is a founding director of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that provides direct health care services and has undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer is the Kolokotrones University Professor and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti.
Dr. Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, and Malawi have pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings. Dr. Farmer has written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. His most recent books are In the Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez,Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction, and To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation.
Other titles include Haiti After the Earthquake, Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, The Uses of Haiti, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, and AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Dr. Farmer is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and, with his PIH colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Kathleen Foley, MD
Medical Director, International Palliative Care Initiative, Public Health Program, Open Society Foundations
Attending Neurologist, Department of Neurology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Kathleen M. Foley is the medical director of the International Palliative Care Initiative of the Open Society Public Health Program. With her colleagues, she has developed scientific guidelines for the use of analgesic drug therapy through clinic pharmacologic studies of opioid drugs. She is an attending neurologist in the Pain & Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and is also professor of neurology, neuroscience, and clinical pharmacology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and previous director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Cancer Pain Research and Education at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Foley holds the chair of the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Pain Research. She is the past director of the Open Society Foundations Project on Death in America. Foley received the Distinguished Service Award and the Humanitarian Award from the American Cancer Society, the David Karnovsky Award from American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the Frank Netter Award from the American Academy of Neurology.
Julio Frenk, MD, MPH, PhD
President, University of Miami
Former Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Former Minister of Health, Mexico
Since January 2009, Dr. Julio Frenk is Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health and T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, a joint appointment with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Frenk served as the Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, where he introduced universal health coverage. He was the founding director of the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico and has also held leadership positions at the Mexican Health Foundation, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Carso Health Institute.
Dr. Frenk holds a medical degree from the National University of Mexico, as well as a Masters of Public Health and a joint doctorate in Medical Care Organization and in Sociology from the University of Michigan. He has been awarded three honorary doctorates.
He is a member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico. His written production comprises 33 books and monographs, 63 book chapters, 130 articles in academic and professional journals, and 117 articles in cultural periodicals and newspapers. Two of his books are best-selling novels for youngsters explaining the functions of the human body.
In September of 2008, Dr. Frenk received the Clinton Global Citizen Award for changing “the way practitioners and policy makers across the world think about health.”
Cynthia Goh, PBM, MB,BS, PhD, FAChPM, FAMS, FRCPE, FRCP
Senior Consultant, Division of Palliative Medicine, National Cancer Centre Singapore
Associate Professor, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School & Yong loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Chair, Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network
Past Chair, Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance
Dr Goh is an Internal Medicine specialist by training, with a PhD in Molecular Biology. She currently practises as an accredited specialist in Palliative Medicine. She is a pioneer of hospice in Singapore, starting as a volunteer in 1986. She helped build several community home care and inpatient hospice services and formed the Singapore Hospice Council. She was awarded the Singapore national award, the Public Service Medal, in 1997 for her contributions to hospice care. In 1999, she started the Department of Palliative Medicine at the National Cancer Centre Singapore, which she headed until 2011. This led to palliative care services being established in all public sector hospitals in Singapore and Palliative Medicine being recognised as a medical subspecialty in Singapore in 2006. She helped establish the Chapter of Palliative Medicine at the College of Physicians Singapore in 2011 and currently chairs the Palliative Medicine Subspecialty Training Committee. Dr Goh was President of the Pain Association of Singapore from 2001 to 2005 and Founding President of the Association of South East Asian Pain Societies (ASEAPS) from 2004 to 2007. She was a Council member of the International Association for the Study of Pain from 2008 to 2014. Dr Goh currently chairs the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network, legally registered in Singapore in 2001 to support the development of palliative care in the Asia-Pacific region. She is the immediate Past Chair of Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance formed in 2008 to advocate for hospice and palliative care globally.
Pascal J. Goldschmidt, MD
Dean, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami Health System (UHealth)
Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., an internationally renowned cardiologist and cardiovascular researcher, is Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs and Dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. He also serves as Chief Executive Officer of the University of Miami Health System (UHealth), which includes three hospitals and more than two dozen outpatient facilities in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Collier counties.
Dr. Goldschmidt, whose research applies genomics and cell therapy to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease, was previously chairman of the Department of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Before taking the chairman’s role, he served as chief of Duke’s Division of Cardiology. Before joining the Duke faculty in 2000, he was director of cardiology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, where he built the Heart and Lung Research Institute and launched a heart hospital.
A native of Belgium, Dr. Goldschmidt received his medical degree from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and completed residency in Brussels at Erasme Academic Hospital and in the United States at Union Memorial Hospital and cardiology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University. Following his training at Hopkins, he served as an assistant professor and then associate professor in the university’s Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine, and in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy and the Department of Pathology until 1997.
Mary Gospodarowicz, MD, FRCPC, FRCR
Medical Director, Cancer Program, Princess Margaret Hospital
Professor and Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto
Immediate Past President, Union for International Cancer Control
Mary Gospodarowicz (Canada) – Her record of service in the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) stretches back two decades. She was a member of the former UICC Council, serving on the Executive Committee. She was elected to the Board of Directors from its inception, serving as a member of the Policy and Finance Committees, UICC Treasurer, Chair of the Membership Committee, and for the past two years as President-Elect. Mary Gospodarowicz is the Medical Director of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada and Regional Vice-President of Cancer Care Ontario for Toronto South. She recently completed a 10-year term as Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto and Chief of the Radiation Medicine Program at Princess Margaret. Mary Gospodarowicz received her medical degree from the University of Toronto and holds specialty certifications in internal medicine, medical oncology, and radiation oncology. Her academic interests include clinical trials evaluating the role of radiation therapy in lymphomas, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and testis cancer. Currently, her major interest is in developing and implementing image guided precision radiotherapy at Princess Margaret. She is very interested in fostering the newly established survivorship clinical programs and research.
Liz Gwyther, MB, ChB, FCFP, MSc
CEO, Hospice Palliative Association of South Africa
Vice-chair, Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance
Senior lecturer, palliative medicine, University of Cape Town
Dr Liz Gwyther has postgraduate qualifications in Family Practice and Palliative Medicine. She is CEO of Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa (HPCA); a Trustee of the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance (WPCA); and a director of the following organisations – African Palliative Care Association, ehospice, Networking AIDS Community of South Africa (NACOSA), and Pain Society of South Africa.
She is a senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town where she heads the Palliative Care team within the School of Public Health and Family Medicine. She is the convener for the postgraduate programmes in Palliative Medicine and is responsible for research supervision and support for publications of the postgraduate students. Her special interests are women’s health and palliative care (in particular palliative care in HIV/AIDS) and human rights in health care. In 2007, she was awarded the SA Medical Association’s Gender Award for Human Rights in Health and the SA Institute of Health Managers Leadership in Health Systems award.
She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Pain & Symptom Management published in the USA.
Irene J Higginson, OBE, BMedSci, BMBS, PhD, FMedSci, FRCP, FFPHM
Professor of Palliative Care and Policy, King’s College London / King’s Health Partners
Scientific Director, Cicely Saunders International
NIHR Senior Investigator
Assistant Medical Director (Research), King’s College Hospital
Irene Higginson qualified in medicine from Nottingham University and has worked in wide ranging medical and university positions, including radiotherapy and oncology, in-patient and home hospice care, the Department of Health (England), and various universities. She is dual-trained in palliative medicine and public health medicine.
She has developed and validated two outcome measures both freely available and used widely in palliative care: the Support Team Assessment Schedule and the Palliative care Outcome Scale (see www.pos-pal.org). She is Director of the Cicely Saunders Institute, at King’s College London, the world’s first purpose-built Institute of palliative care, integrating research, education, clinical services and support and information. Prof. Higginson is an NIHR Senior Investigator and was in 2013 awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences, for her contribution to the field. She has several active research programmes, leads the MSc, Diploma and Certificate in Palliative Care, supervises several PhD students and is active in teaching.
Prof. Higginson has published over 400 articles in peer-reviewed journals, plus several books; her research interests and publications are in the following areas: quality of life and outcome measurements, evaluation of palliative care especially of new services and interventions, epidemiology, clinical audit, effectiveness, psychosocial care, symptom assessment, breathlessness, cachexia/anorexia, and elderly care. She plays an active role in the clinical service, including on-call.
Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallett, BA
Chair, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Adjunct Professor, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College
Trustee, King’s Fund
Former Chief Executive, Marie Curie Cancer Care
Former barrister, banker, and Chief Executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Sir Thomas was appointed Executive Chair of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London in 2012 and became Non-executive Chair of Cause4 in 2013, a social business creating pioneering programmes and fundraising solutions for the charitable sector.
Sir Thomas has authored a number of independent reviews, including: The Philanthropy Review, a Review of End-of-Life Care for Adults and Children and the ‘Who Will Care?’ 2013 report commissioned by Essex County Council on health and social care strategy in Essex.
Trustee of The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The King’s Fund, Sir Thomas is also Chairman of the End-of-Life Care Implementation Advisory Board and Commissioner of Royal Hospital Chelsea.
Awarded a Knighthood in 2012 and a Beacon Fellowship for Philanthropy Advocacy in 2013, Sir Thomas’s passions are philanthropy, innovation, patient-centred health care and choral music.
Huda Abu-Saad Huijer, RN, PhD, FEANS, FAAN
Professor of Nursing Science and Director Hariri School of Nursing, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Immediate Past President, Lebanese Society for the Study of Pain
Vice-President, National Committee on Pain Relief and Palliative Care, Lebanon
Dr. Abu-Saad Huijer is professor and Director of the Hariri School of Nursing at AUB. Her research endeavors have focused primarily on pain management and palliative care in children and adults. She is also interested in research addressing the expanded role of the nurse in relation to chronic illness in the home setting. To that effect she has supervised a large number of PhD dissertations and has been lead investigator on a large number of funded projects in the Netherlands and in Lebanon on pain management, palliative care, and integrated models of care for the chronically ill. Her research endeavors in Lebanon have focused primarily on pain management & palliative care in adults and children. She is currently a lead investigator on a number of national projects and has published more than 300 articles in national & international refereed and professional journals and two books, one of which is on ‘evidence-based palliative care across the life span’. Dr. Abu-Saad Huijer has served on a number of international expert committees, most recent of which is the WHO expert panel on palliative care in children and the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Pain Control and Palliative Care. At the national level, she served as President of the Lebanese Society for the Study of Pain and is currently the Vice-President of the National Committee on Pain Relief and Palliative Care. In recognition of her work, Dr. Abu-Saad Huijer was elected International Fellow to the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) in 2010, is a fellow and founding member of the European Academy of Nursing Science (FEANS), and has received the Life Time Achievement Award from the McMillan Cancer Support and International Journal of Palliative Nursing in the UK in 2010.
David J Hunter, MD, PhD
Acting Dean of the Faculty and Dean for Academic Affairs
Vincent L. Gregory Professor of Cancer Prevention, Department of Epidemiology and Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
David Hunter’s principal research interests are the etiology of cancer, particularly breast, prostate, pancreas and skin cancers. He is an investigator on the Nurses’ Health Study, a long-running cohort of 121,000 US women, and was project director for the Nurses’ Health Study II, a newer cohort of 116,000 women. Dr. Hunter founded the Pooling Project of Diet and Cancer, a collaborative analysis of dietary risk factors for breast, colorectal and lung cancers. He analyzes inherited susceptibility to cancer and other chronic diseases using genetic analyses. This work is largely based in subcohorts of the Nurses Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study of approximately 50,000 women and 25,000 men who have given a blood or saliva sample that can be used for DNA analyses. He has led collaborative analysis across large Consortia, leading to the discovery of multiple genetic associations including the common genetic variant in FGFR2 with the strongest association with breast cancer. Dr. Hunter developed and supervised laboratories at the Harvard School of Public Health in which gene sequence information from these samples is obtained.
Dr. Hunter has also studied HIV transmission for over twenty-five years, initially in Kenya and then in Tanzania. He has collaborated with investigators in Dar-es-Salaam to understand the relationship of nutritional status with progression of HIV disease and perinatal transmission.
Professor Hunter was the Director of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention from 1997-2003. In June of 2009, he was appointed Dean for Academic Affairs at the School. He is also the Vincent L. Gregory Professor of Cancer Prevention. He is the founding Director (2003) of the Harvard Chan School’s Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology and is Principal Investigator of a number of ongoing breast and prostate cancer studies. He co-chaired the Steering Committee of the NCI Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium, was co-Director of the NCI Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (CGEMS)Special Initiative, and was a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute. He is contact Principal Investigator of the DRIVE (Discovery, Biology and Risk of Inherited Variants in Breast Cancer) Consortium. According to Thomson Reuters he is one of approximately 3,000 highly cited researchers in all branches of science worldwide. He is the author of over 700 peer-reviewed articles and commentaries, and has co-edited three books, most recently Readings in Global Health (Oxford University Press).
As Dean for Academic Affairs he has led the Harvard Chan School strategy for developing HarvardX and other online courses. Over 250,000 students have enrolled in one or more of these courses, and over 15,000 have received Certificates of Completion. In 2015 HSPH is offering a blended residential and online MPH in Epidemiology, the first such Master’s degree at Harvard University. He was appointed Acting Dean in 2015.
Dean Jamison, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Global Health, University of Washington
Senior Fellow in Global Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco
Dean Jamison is a Senior Fellow in Global Health Sciences at UCSF and an Emeritus Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. Jamison previously held academic appointments at Harvard and UCLA and was an economist on the staff of the World Bank where he was lead author of The Bank’s World Development Report, 1993. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He recently served as Co-Chair and Study Director of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health.
Felicia Knaul, PhD, MA (Chair)
Director, Miami Institute for the Americas
Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami
Senior Economist, Mexican Health Foundation
Founder and President, Cáncer de mama: Tómatelo a Pecho
Felicia Marie Knaul is Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Director, Harvard Global Equity Initiative. She is also Chair of the Pan American Health Organization Task Force on Universal Health Coverage; Honorary Research Professor of Medical Sciences, National Institute of Public Health of Mexico; and, Senior Economist, Mexican Health Foundation.
Her research is focused on global health, cancer and especially breast cancer in low and middle income countries, women and health, health systems and reform, health financing, universal access to pain control and palliative care, poverty and inequity, and children in especially difficult circumstances.
Dr. Knaul has produced over 160 academic and policy publications. She has participated in several global reports and directed the production of various policy papers for the government of Mexico. In 2012, she led a Lancet publication with a group of authors that reviewed the health system reform of Mexico; a follow-up to The Lancet 2006 Mexico series that she also chaired. She participates in the Lancet Commission on Women and Health, and the Lancet Series “Hidden and distinctive knowledge on Universal Health Coverage from Latin America.” She is also Chief Editor of the Global Health and Cancer section of The Oncologist and serves on the advisory board of Lancet Global Health, as well as on the editorial board of ecancer Medical Science. Dr. Knaul also writes for the Huffington Post.
As a result of her breast cancer experience, in 2008 Dr. Knaul founded Cáncer de Mama: Tómatelo a Pecho a non-profit agency that promotes research, advocacy, awareness, and early detection in Latin America. She has lectured globally on the challenge of breast cancer in low and middle income countries, both as patient-advocate and health systems researcher. Tómatelo a Pecho (Grupo Santillana, 2009) and Beauty without the Breast (Harvard University Press 2013) recount her personal experience and her work has been featured in The Lancet, Science, WHO Bulletin and Newsweek en Español.
Dr. Knaul created and coordinated several research and advocacy networks. She co-founded the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in 2009 and is lead author of “Closing the Cancer Divide (2012 Harvard University Press). She coordinates the Global Network for Health Equity that brings together researchers from Latin America, Asia and Africa. She mentors several young leader groups including the Harvard Cancer Society, YP-NCD network and NCDFree.
She has held senior, federal government positions at the Ministries of Education and Social Development of Mexico, and the Colombian Department of Planning. She has also worked as a consultant and advisor for bilateral and multilateral agencies such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank.
Dr. Knaul is currently a board member of the EAT Forum, Union for International Cancer Control, Harvard-Mexico Foundation, Jalisco Cancer Institute, and Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi Center of Excellence in Breast Cancer in Saudi Arabia.
In 2005, she was awarded the Global Development Network Prize for Outstanding Research on Change in the Health Sector for her work on Seguro Popular and financial protection in Mexico. In2013 she was named one of Mexico’s most influential women.
Dr. Knaul is a citizen of Canada and the United Kingdom, and a permanent resident of Mexico, dividing her time between Cuernavaca, Morelos and Sudbury, MA. She and her husband, Dr. Julio Frenk, have two children, Hannah Sofia and Mariana Havivah.
Eric Krakauer, MD, PhD
Director, International Programs, Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care
Associate Professor of Medicine and of Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Attending Physician, Division of Palliative Care, Massachusetts General Hospital
Visiting Assistant Professor of Medicine, Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine, Vietnam
Senior Health & Policy Advisor for Palliative Care, Partners In Health
Dr. Krakauer is Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Global Health & Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing internist and palliative medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital where he also co-chairs the clinical ethics committee. Dr. Krakauer has been teaching in Vietnam since 2001 when he founded the Vietnam-CDC-Harvard Medical School AIDS Partnership (VCHAP, now called HAIVN) to provide training and technical assistance in HIV/AIDS treatment to Vietnam’s physicians and nurses in partnership with the Ministry of Health and thereby to help enable introduction and scale-up of anti-retroviral therapy.
As Director of International Programs at the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care since 2005, Dr. Krakauer has assisted Vietnam’s Ministry of Health and major cancer centers and general hospitals to integrate pain relief and palliative care into the country’s cancer care and overall healthcare systems. He and his team have trained over 1000 Vietnamese clinicians in pain relief and palliative care and provided technical assistance with palliative care policy development, accessibility of morphine and other essential palliative medicines, and implementation of clinical programs. In addition, he works with Partners In Health (PIH), a charitable organization based in Boston, to integrate pain relief and palliative care into PIH’s pioneering cancer treatment programs for the rural poor in Rwanda, Malawi, and Haiti.
The curricula in palliative medicine that Dr. Krakauer created for developing countries have been translated into Vietnamese, Russian, and French, and adapted for use in East Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Haiti. As a faculty member of the International Palliative Care Leadership Development Initiative, he has mentored emerging leaders in palliative care in Vietnam and Bangladesh. He also has served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin based International Pain Policy Fellowship since its inception in 2006. In that role, he has mentored colleagues in Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Rwanda to improve access to opioid pain medicines.
He recently was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Vietnam. Dr. Krakauer serves as a Consultant to the International Palliative Care Initiative of the Open Society Foundations and as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Hospice & Palliative Care. His current research focuses on clinical and policy aspects of palliative care for poor and medically underserved populations around the world and on clinical and ethical issues in end-of-life care.
Emmanuel Luyirika, MFM, MPA, BPA, MB, CHB
Executive Director, African Palliative Care Association
Dr. Luyirika has been the Executive Director of the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) since August 2012. He spent 9 years running an HIV programme at Mildmay International where holistic care and prevention for HIV and related conditions was emphasized. His role at Mildmay involved clinical care of patients and their families, organizational management, in-service training of health workers from across the continent, developing education programmes and research. He has been actively involved in palliative care development both in Uganda and across Africa.
Before returning to Uganda Dr Luyirika worked for the Department of Health in Limpopo Province in South Africa for nine years and was involved in care delivery as well as lecturing in Family Medicine at MEDUNSA. He did his undergraduate degree in medicine at Makerere University in Uganda, postgraduate degree in Family Medicine at Medical University of Southern Africa and Public Administration at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
He has been involved in several research studies and also served on several Data Safety Monitoring Boards and Steering Committees of studies in Africa run by MRC and CDC. He is also the president-elect for the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services Hospital in Uganda (CoRSU) a charitable service focusing on children with disability due to orthopedic, plastic and other acquired or congenital disability.
Dr Luyirika has also published on a number of aspects of HIV care and treatment and palliative care in Africa. He has special interest in the interplay between palliative care and disease prevention efforts for communicable and non-communicable diseases at the household level as well as a family approach to care and integration of palliative care into existing health systems for sustainability.
Diederik Lohman, MA
Interim Director, Health and Human Rights Division, Human Rights Watch
Diederik Lohman is the Associate Director of the Health and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. He leads the organization’s research and advocacy on palliative care and pain treatment. As part of the project, he has spearheaded advocacy at the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the International Narcotics Control Board, the World Health Organization and other international institutions. He has conducted or supervised research on palliative care in Armenia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Russia, Senegal and Ukraine and various other countries. He has also conducted extensive research on and written about drug dependence treatment and HIV treatment for drug users, and HIV testing and counseling. Previously, he served as senior researcher for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus with the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch and as its Moscow office director.
Rafael Lozano Ascencio, MD, MSc
Director, Center for Health Systems Research, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico
Professor of Global Health, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington
Director of Center for Health Systems Research at the National Institute of Public Health. Mexico and Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.
Prior to joining IHME, Dr. Lozano worked for seven years at the Ministry of Health in Mexico as the General Director of Health Information, where he coordinated the Health Information System for the Ministry of Health and the production of national health statistics, coordinating information from a number of health sector institutions in Mexico.
Dr. Lozano has been a leading contributor to epidemiological statistics, theory, and methods. He worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva as Senior Epidemiologist for the Global Program on Evidence for Health Policy for three years, and at Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, where he headed the Department of Epidemiology and the Division of Epidemiological Transition.
Dr. Lozano is member of the National Research System (Level II) and he is also member of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico. Dr. Lozano has also brought his wealth of experience to numerous expert and advisory groups, including the Core Group of the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study, the Technical Advisory Group for the WHO’s Health Metrics Network, and the Pan American Health Organization’s Health Statistics Advisory Committee.
He holds a MD and a Master’s in Social Medicine both from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Dr. Lozano has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles on his research.
María Elena Medina-Mora, PhD
Director, National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico
Dr. Maria Elena Medina-Mora is an alumnus from the Iberoamerican University (UIA) where she completed her master studies. Later on she obtained a doctoral degree in social psychology by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is an expert in addiction and mental health and has in fact held several academic positions to this purpose in the UNAM where she is also member of the Governance Board since 2003. She was director of the Department of Epidemiological and Psychosocial Research in the National Institute of Psychiatry “Ramon de la Fuente Muñiz” until October 2008. Henceforth she was named General Director of the same institute.
She is a level III of the National System of Researcher, is member of the National College, The Mexican Science Academy and of the National College of Psychologists.
Internationally she is member of several advisory committees of the World Health Organization tackling substance abuse and health consequences of alcohol consumption. She is also a member of the Inter-institutional Panel for the prevention of addiction of the United Nations and the International Narcotics Control Board.
Faith Mwangi-Powell, Msc, PhD
Chief of Party, University Research Co., LLC – Kenya
Founder and former Executive Director, African Palliative Care Association
Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell works for the University Research Company as the Chief of Party for Applying Science to Improve and Strengthen Systems (ASSIST) Kenya. In this capacity, Faith provides leadership and strategic direction for the URC country office and ASSIST work. Prior to joining ASSIST, Faith worked in global advocacy and financing with the Open Society Foundations, based in New York, and was previously the Executive Director of the African Palliative Care Association in Kampala, Uganda. Faith comes from a community health background, with expertise in gender issues, sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, palliative care, organizational development, governance/leadership, policy and international advocacy.
Within the global development arena, Faith has provided assistance with management and governance in small-to-medium sized organizations, leading program implementation at the community and national levels, liaising with governments and donors, establishing program policies, procedures and systems, and leading grant review processes.
Academically, Faith holds a master’s degree in population policies and programs from Cardiff University, Wales, and a doctorate in women’s economic development and fertility behavior from the University of Exeter, England. She has published in internationally renowned peer-reviewed scientific journals with a major focus on sexual and reproductive health, community health and palliative care, primarily in resource-limited settings.
Sania Nishtar, FRCP, PhD
Founder and President, Heartfile, Pakistan
Former Minister, Science and Technology, Education and Training, and Information Technology and Telcom of Pakistan
Sania Nishtar is the founder of many health institutions in Pakistan, the NGO think tank Heartfile, Pakistan’s Health Policy Forum and the award-winning Heartfile Health Financing program.
In 2013 she served as a Federal Minister in Pakistan’s Interim Government, where she held four portfolios. Internationally, she is part of many Global health initiatives.
She was recently appointed as co-chair of a WHO Commission, which is a great honor for Pakistan. In the press release, World Health Organization described her as a “widely considered thought leader on health policy, a key drafter of several global health declarations”
Sania Nishtar is member of the board of several international agencies. She is vice Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council, a member of Harvard University’s Ministerial Leadership Initiative, and member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and chairs the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative’s Evaluation Advisory Committee.
In addition to being a regular plenary speaker or chair at global health meetings, she is also a key voice in health policy and governance reform in Pakistan.
Sania Nishtar is the author of 6 books, more than 100 peer review articles and around the same number of op-eds.
She is the recipient of Pakistan’s Sitara e-Imtiaz, the European Societies Population Science Award, and many accolades of the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge and the American Biographical Center. In 2011 she received the prestigious Global Innovation award, which was given only to four individuals in the world, one of them being President Bill Clinton.
Sania Nishtar holds a Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and a Ph.D from Kings College, London. She was a college best graduate and received 16 gold medals a record which remains unbroken to date.
Meg O’Brien, PhD
Director, Global Cancer Treatment, American Cancer Society
Dr. Meg O’Brien is the Managing Director of Global Cancer Treatment at the American Cancer Society. She leads a portfolio of projects in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Swaziland that expand access to cancer treatment and essential pain medicines. Previously, Dr. O’Brien was the research director of the Center for Strategic HIV Operations Research at the Clinton Health Access Initiative and worked on the establishment of HIV treatment clinics for the US government’s PEPFAR program in Tanzania as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. She also worked as the Chief Epidemiologist of the HIV Outpatient Clinic in New Orleans while completing her doctorate in epidemiology at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Dr. O’Brien started her career in Washington, DC as a biostatistician at Statistics Collaborative, Inc. while earning a Master’s Degree in International Health from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and has a degree in Biology and a certificate in African Studies from Georgetown University.
Lukas Radbruch, MD
Chair of Palliative Medicine, University of Bonn
Director, Department of Palliative Medicine, University Hospital, Bonn
Director, Center for Palliative Care, Malteser Hospital Seliger Gerhard Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, Bonn
Chair, International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care
President, German Association for Palliative Care
Lukas Radbruch holds the Chair of Palliative Medicine at the University of Bonn since 2010. He is president of the German Association for Palliative Medicine and chair of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) since 2014. He was president of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) during 2007-2011 and has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Research Network of EAPC since 1996.
Dr. Radbruch attended medical school in Bonn, graduating in 1985. He completed his training in anaesthesiology at the University of Cologne. He chaired the pain clinic of the University of Cologne from 1995 to 2003, when he moved to Aachen where he set up the new Chair of Palliative Medicine at the University of Aachen. Since 2010 he is the Chair of Palliative Medicine at the University of Bonn and the director of the Centre of Palliative Medicine at the Malteser Krankenhaus Seliger Gerhard Bonn / Rhein-Sieg
He completed his Habilitation (the German equivalent of a PhD) in 2000, and has published extensively, with his main research interests are symptom assessment, opioid treatment, fatigue, cachexia and ethical issues in palliative care. He coordinates the project Access To Opioid Medication in Europe (ATOME) which is funded by the 7th Framework of the European Commission. In 2000 he chaired the first Research Forum of the EAPC and in 2005, 2011 and 2013 the main congresses of the EAPC.
M.R. Rajagopal, MBBS, MD, MNAMS
Co-Founder and Chairman, Pallium India
Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Policy and Training on Access to Pain Relief, Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences, Pallium India
Vice Chairman, Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network
Dr. M R Rajagopal is the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Policy and Training on Access to Pain Relief at Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS) and the founder-chairman of “Pallium India”, a trust founded to improve access to palliative care in India. He has worked since 1995 with Government of India, to persuade the acceptance of Palliative Medicine as an independent specialty, to develop the National Program for Palliative Care (NPPC) of Government of India and to amend and to simplify the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act of India, thus removing regulatory barriers to access to pain relief. He is member of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare of Government of India, a life time advisor to the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) and is the vice chairman of Asia Pacific Hospice Network (APHN). He is a member of the International Experts’ Committee of the WHO Collaborating Center at Madison-Wisconsin.
Srinath K. Reddy, MD, DM
President, Public Health Foundation of India
Prof. Srinath K Reddy is presently President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). He was appointed as the First Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2009. He is also an Adjunct Professor of the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University and Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney. PHFI is engaged in capacity building in Public Health in India through education, training, research, policy development, health communication and advocacy.
Having trained in cardiology and epidemiology, Prof. Reddy has been involved in several major international and national research studies including the INTERSALT global study of blood pressure and electrolytes, INTERHEART global study on risk factors of myocardial infarction, national collaborative studies on epidemiology of coronary heart disease and community control of rheumatic heart disease. Widely regarded as a leader of preventive cardiology at national and international levels, Prof. Reddy has been a researcher, teacher, policy enabler, advocate and activist who has worked to promote cardiovascular health, tobacco control, chronic disease prevention and healthy living across the lifespan. He edited the National Medical Journal of India for 10 years and is on editorial board of several international and national journals. He has more than 400 scientific publications in international and Indian peer reviewed-journals.
He has served on many WHO expert panels and is presently the President of the World Heart Federation (2013-14). He also chairs the Core Advisory Group on Health and Human Rights for the National Human Rights Commission of India and is a member of the National Science and Engineering Research Board of Government of India. He recently chaired the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage, set up by the Planning Commission of India. He also serves as the President, of the National Board of Examinations which deals with post-graduate medical education in India.
Prof. Reddy is a member of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (ww.unsdsn.org), established to assist the United Nations in developing the post-2015 goals for sustainable development. He chairs the Thematic Group on Health in the SDSN.
His contributions to public health have been recognized through several awards and honours. They include: WHO Director General’s Award for Outstanding Global Leadership in Tobacco Control (World Health Assembly, 2003), Padma Bhushan (Presidential Honour, India, 2005), Queen Elizabeth Medal (Royal Society for Health Promotion, UK, 2005), Luther Terry Medal for Leadership in Tobacco Control (American Cancer Society, 2009), Membership of the US National Academies (Institute of Medicine, 2005), Fellowship of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2009), Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health, UK (2009), Cutter Lecture (Harvard, 2006), Koplan Lecture (CDC, 2008), Gopalan Oration (2009), Ramalingaswami Oration (2010), Paul Dudley White Lecture (AHA, 2010), Sheth Lecture (Emory, 2012), Philip Poole Wilson Memorial Oration (AIIMS-UKIERI, 2012), Sir John Wilson Oration (IAPB,2012), Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) conferred by University of Aberdeen, Scotland (2011), Dr. NTR Medical University (2o11), University of Lausanne, Switzerland (2012), and University of Glasgow, Scotland (2013) and Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa) conferred by the Jodhpur National University, India (2013)
He has also won prestigious literary awards such as: the Global Peace Essay contest organized by Economists Allied for Arms Reduction – ECAAR – and judged by 9 Nobel Laureates and the Times of India Essay contest on Human Rights and Media. He was a prize winning debater and quizzer at school and college levels.
María del Rocío Sáenz Madrigal, MPH, MD
Executive President, Costa Rican Social Security (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social)
Former Minister of Health, Costa Rica
Costa Rican Medical, public health specialist. She served as Minister of Health in Costa Rica in 2002-2006 and Coordinating Minister of Social Governing Council during 2004-2006. As Minister of Health and Coordinator of the Social Cabinet, accounted support the monitoring and evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), coordinating the first progress report, being the counterpart of projects aimed at children with UNICEF. By the end of 2005, she led the drafting of a new General Health Law, to include related to bioethics, professional regulation, sexual and reproductive health, funding for research processes using genomes in health, a structural system new chapters health and others. Also, for his career has knowledge of the three levels of care; expert in the health system as well as Costa Rica outstanding work in coordinating projects of breast cancer in which she worked directly with patients and volunteers for better care, including major publications on the issue.
Dr. Saenz has worked as an academic in undergraduate and graduate programs of the School of Medicine and School of Public Health at the University of Costa Rica, and the National University. Actually, Executive President of the Costa Rican Social Insurance which provides public services in health care in the country and directed the board of the institution.
Judy Salerno, MD, MS
President and CEO, Susan G. Komen®
Judith A. Salerno, M.D., M.S., is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Susan G. Komen®, responsible for the day-to-day operation of the organization and for setting and implementing Komen’s strategic vision.
Dr. Salerno joined Komen in September of 2013. As President and CEO, Dr. Salerno leads Komen’s revenue and mission programs, including Komen’s breast cancer research program which to date is the largest breast cancer research program of any nonprofit. Dr. Salerno sets the direction of Komen’s health policy programs and works with Komen’s network of 120 U.S. and international Affiliates to eliminate disparities in breast cancer treatment and improve outcomes in communities in the U.S. and in 30 countries around the world, with a special focus on the psychosocial, medical and financial needs of low-income and medically underserved individuals.
Dr. Salerno brings extensive experience in research, health policy, clinical care, and community health programming to the role. Before joining Komen, she was Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and before that, was Deputy Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Throughout her career, she has been a volunteer physician for the underserved and most vulnerable.
A board-certified physician in internal medicine, Dr. Salerno earned her M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1985 and a Master of Science degree in Health Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1976. She is the mother of three children and an avid baseball fan.
Yi-Xin Zeng, MD, PhD
President, Beijing Hospital, China
ZENG Yixin, is a Professor and President of Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China. He was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2005. Prior to his appointment at PUMC, he had been the president of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center from 1997 to 2013 and had served as Director of the State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China since 2004. He received his post-doc training on molecular mechanisms of cancer pathogenesis in Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo University and the University of Pennsylvania from 1992 to 1997.
Dr. Zeng’s research is devoted to the pathogenesis of cancer and cancer biotherapy, with a focus on nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), on which he has published over 300 papers in leading international journals including Nature, Nature Genetic and Cancer Research. He has been honored with many awards for his research, including Second Class Award for Natural Science Achievements (National Office for Science and Technology Awards, 2005), He-Liang-He-Li Award for Science and Technology Advancement (2007), Award for Outstanding Science and Technology Achievements in Guangdong Province (the People’s Government of Guangdong Province, 2011). Currently Dr. Zeng is leading the 863 program (National High Technology Research and Development Program of China) “Molecular Classification and Individualized Therapy for Major Diseases” and 973 program (National Basic Research Program of China)“Research on Mechanisms and Intervene of Oncogenic Virus”.
Dr. Zeng served as the president of the International Association of EB Virus and Related Diseases from 2006 to 2008. He is the chief editor of the national postgraduate textbook Oncology designed by the Minister of Health; the Editor-in-chief of the Chinese Journal of Cancer; and Vice Editor-in-chief of the medicine undergraduate textbook Clinical Oncology. He has also acted as the vice president of the China Anti-Cancer Association since 2007.