Global Health Leaders Forum

Can Science and Scientists Change the World?

Richard Horton, BSc MB FRCP FMedSci
Editor, The Lancet

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
12:15 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.
Wolfe St. building, Sommer Hall E2014, Baltimore, MD

About Richard Horton

Richard Horton (BSc MB FRCP FMedSci) was born in London and qualified in medicine from the University of Birmingham in 1986. He completed his general medical training in Birmingham before moving to the liver unit at the Royal Free Hospital. In 1990, he joined The Lancet as an assistant editor and moved to New York as North American editor in 1993. Two years later he returned to the UK to become Editor-in-Chief.

He was the first President of the World Association of Medical Editors and is a Past-President of the US Council of Science Editors. He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, and the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Founder Fellow of the UK's Academy of Medical Sciences.

In 2005 he was a member of the working party and subsequently wrote the report for the Royal College of Physicians' inquiry into the future of medical professionalism – Doctors in Society. He currently chairs the Royal College of Physicians' Working Party on Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Industry; co-chairs a WHO Scientific Advisory Group on Clinical Trials Registration; is a Council Member of the Global Forum for Health Research; is a Board Member of the Health Metrics Network; sits on the External Reference Group for WHO's Research Strategy; and is an External Advisory Board Member for the WHO European Region.

In 2004, The Lancet won the UK's Medical Publication of the Year and, in 2007, he received the Edinburgh Medal for professional achievements judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding of human health and wellbeing. In 2008, he was appointed a Senior Associate of The Nuffield Trust, a think tank for research and policy studies in health services. He has a strong interest in issues of global health. He has been a medical columnist for The Observer and writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and New York Review of Books. A book about controversies in modern medicine, Second Opinion, was published in 2003.