Nagy Habib, MD

Head of R&D at MiNA Therapeutics Ltd.

Speaker

Professor Nagy Habib is Head of Surgery at the Hammersmith Campus of Imperial College London and also a serial founder and entrepreneur of life sciences ventures. He is co-founder of several biotech companies: EMcision Ltd, OmniCyte Ltd, MiNA Therapeutics Ltd, Apterna Ltd, Medeva Plc and Bioenvision Ltd. Previously he was Pro-Rector for Commercial Affairs at Imperial College London.

He is a translational researcher who pioneered the first clinical trial of the use of plasmid and adenovirus for the treatment of liver cancer, as well as the use of plasmid gene therapy in hydrodynamic gene delivery. He was the Principal Investigator of world first clinical trials published on the use of adult bone marrow-derived stem cells for the treatment of patients with liver insufficiency and CD34+ cells for patients with stroke.

He was the inventor and co-author on the first publication to describe the use of radiofrequency energy in devices for liver surgery (Habib 4X), and interventional endoscopy (Habib™ EndoHPB and Habib™ EUS-RFA).

Professor Habib holds a gold award from the Advisory Committee for Clinical Excellence which is given to recognise and reward the exceptional contribution of NHS consultants, over and above that normally expected in a job, to the values and goals of the NHS and to patient care, and he was named as one of Britain’s top surgeons in December 2011 by the Saturday Times Magazine. He was awarded Honorary Professorships by universities in China, Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, and Russia. In November 2012 he was awarded Takreem Laureate for his contribution to technology and science.

In the 2014 Research Excellence Frame work (REF) exercise, which is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK in higher education institutions, Professor Habib was rated as a 4* researcher which is the highest ranking. His work on radiofrequency ablation was selected among those that have had the most “Impact on Society” and was ranked 1 with a score of 93%. In January 2015 he was elected as a Foreign Member by the prestigious French Académie Nationale de Chirurgie.