This seminar brings together leading experts to highlight how the UK and UAE are meeting the challenges of cancer care and to demonstrate the impact of innovation from both countries. It will look at cancer prevention, diagnostics, treatment and care and how innovation is promoted and developed, especially in the use of genetics services and AI technologies in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Speakers:
Dr Peter Kecskemethy, CEO & Co-founder, Kheiron Medical Technologies
Dr. Peter Kecskemethy is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Kheiron Medical, an AI cancer diagnostics company based in London. Kheiron’s mission is to give a better fighting chance against cancer and its current focus is breast screening. Prior to Kheiron, Peter founded two tech start-ups and was lead developer in two others. He is a computer scientist, and did his PhD and post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford in high performance computing and computational statistics for population genetics.
Dr Maha Barakat, Senior Advisor, Mubadala
Maha Barakat, a UK-trained Consultant Endocrinologist, is the Director General of the Frontline Heroes Office, and a Senior Advisor at Mubadala. In addition to being a Board member of Mubadala Health, she is the Board Chair of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, and Board member of the Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE), the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Quality Conformity Council, and the Family Development Foundation. She was previously the Director General of the Health Authority Abu Dhabi from 2013-2018. Prior to this, she co-founded the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi, and was its Medical and Research Director. She is committed to supporting medical research, education and quality improvement in healthcare.
Lord Ajay Kakkar, Emeritus Professor of Surgery / President, University College London / Thrombosis Research Institute
Lord Ajay Kakkar is Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University College London, and President of the Thrombosis Research Institute. He is Chairman of King’s Health Partners, the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research, the King’s Fund and UK Biobank.
He completed his medical degree at King’s College London and received his PhD from Imperial College London. He has been a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons since 1992. His research interests include the prevention and treatment of venous and arterial thromboembolic disease and cancer-associated thrombosis.
Lord Kakkar was created a Life Peer in 2010 and sits on the cross benches of the House of Lords. He is Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission. He is a Knight of the British Empire and a member of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council.
H.E. Dr Omniyat Mohammed Al Hajeri, Executive Director of the Community Health Division, AD Public Health Centre
H.E. Dr. Omniyat Mohammed Al Hajeri is the Executive Director of the Community Health Division at the AD Public Health Center, She is specialized in the field of public health and leadership, also a practicing consultant physician in the field of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolic diseases, she studied medicine, worked and trained in Ireland for 10 years and worked around twenty years at several Abu Dhabi Hospitals. She also served previously as Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Medicine and Health Sciences.
She is a member of the Estijaba (COVID response team in AD health sector) with a special focus on the education sector agile response to COVID and also supports stakeholders involved in COVID response relationships in general.
Dr. Omniyat also worked at the first Health Authority established in Abu Dhabi and continued to help shape the health sector and its major reforms since 2001. Before moving to AD Public Health center in 2019, She served in the Department of health as a Director of Public Health and Research since 2011, leading a number of departments and including communicable disease, non-communicable diseases, Health promotion, research and occupational and environmental health where she worked with her team to initiate and implement more than 20 public health programs that are still serving the AD community. She also worked previously in health professional licensing (2007-2010), and human resources (2001-2007) , where she served as a founding member of the licensing, examination, credentialing, continuous medical education and post graduate medical education services in the Emirate of AD.
Dr. Omniyat is a board member of the Abu Dhabi Sports Council and the Academy of Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Women's Sport, and also was previously a board member at Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company and ExCel London Exhibitions company (2016-2019) and Abu Dhabi Media Company.
Awards: Awarded the ‘Chairman of The Executive Council Medal’ in the Executive Directors category in 2013 in addition to more than 25 academic awards and medals and 10 other recognition awards. Was Elected member of the Delta Omega Honor Society- Johns Hopkins Bloomberg school of Public Health May2011 and re elected 2020 for life long membership (US national honor society that aims to encourage excellence in research, scholarship and practice of public health and to recognize attainments in the field of public health).
Education:
- PhD in Health Care Management and Leadership at Johns Hopkins University 2020
- Master of strategic and security studies, National Defence College, UAE 2015
- Master of Public Health in Health Care Management, Public Health and Leadership JHSPH Bloomberg School of Public Health - May 2011.
- Membership of the Royal College of Physicians MRCP- Ireland 2001
- MB, BCH, BAO, LRCPS & NUI, the Royal College of Surgeons- Ireland 1999
Dr Simon Hughes, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.
Simon Hughes is a consultant Clinical Oncologist at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. He specialises in the treatment of Urological Cancers. He is Director of Guy’s Cancer Academy (www.guyscanceracademy.co.uk) who aim to transform cancer care through innovative digital education.
He is also the Education and Training lead for Cancer at King’s Health Partners Comprehensive Cancer Centre; and sits on various Education Boards and Steering groups for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He has an active interest in radiotherapy Research and Development and is an Honorary Reader at King’s College London School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Professor Dame Lyn Chitty PhD MRCOG, Professor of Genetics and Fetal Medicine, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health / Great Ormond Street NHS Foundation Trust.
Lyn Chitty, Professor of Genetics and Fetal Medicine at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street NHS Foundation Trust, has published extensively on prenatal diagnosis and ultrasound screening of fetal abnormalities.
She led the work on the use of circulating cell free DNA in maternal plasma which has led to implementation in the UK for the non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) of monogenic conditions. She continues to work on the implementation of new molecular techniques to improve prenatal diagnosis through implementation of rapid sequencing, extended development of NIPD and whole genome sequencing for postnatal diagnosis.
Her research is always patient focused, working closely with patient support organisations, social scientists and ethicists to ensure we understand patient needs, we develop methods to ensure informed parental/patient consent for these more complex tests and the care pathways are designed to meet all stakeholder requirements.
She led the North Thames GMC for the 100,000 Genomes project, helped establish the NT Genomic Laboratory Hub and was medical director until recently. She is an NIHR Senior Investigator Emeritus, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Prenatal Diagnosis, Past President of the International Society of Prenatal Diagnosis, Deputy Director of the GOSH NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and continues to lead the rare disease translational research in the NT Genomic Laboratory Hub at GOSH.
She was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2022 New Years Honours list in recognition of her service to medicine.
Dr Ramadan al Blooshi, Senior Advisor to the Director General, Dubai Health Authority
Location: World Trade Club, Level 33