Honorary doctorate lectures at the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy

Lynne Taylor works at Purdue University in Indiana, where she is Professor of Industrial and Molecular Pharmaceutics. She is a world-leading researcher at the boundary of pharmaceutical physical chemistry and galenic pharmacy, with a research programme focused on better understanding the interactions between molecules in drug formulations.

Professor Taylor focuses on understanding how solid-state transformations occur in both dry and wet conditions and how these affect the behaviour of a formulation. How these complex systems release substances after taking a tablet, for example, depends on how the active pharmaceutical ingredient reacts with other compounds in the medicine and with fluids in the gastrointestinal tract.

Lynne Taylor addresses classical, fundamental scientific questions while her research is of the utmost importance to the pharmaceutical industry. Her ability to work at the boundary between academic research and drug development has meant that her models and techniques have been rapidly transferred and applied in the pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmacist Dag Larsson is Senior Policy Advisor at Lif. He is also Chair of the National Coordination Function for ATMP, whose mission is to promote collaboration between academia, industry and healthcare to ensure new innovative treatment methods reach patients. Over the years, he has held numerous leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry and is a sought-after, award-winning lecturer, future analyst and debater. He is renowned for his outstanding ability to highlight critical perspectives from the entire drug development process – from concept to patient.

Through his involvement as an external adviser and active alumnus at Uppsala University, Dag Larsson has generously shared his expertise with the Faculty, which has had a positive impact on both education and research.

Gerard Doherty is a specialist in surgery, with a particular focus on endocrine surgery. Since 2016, Dr Doherty has held the Moseley Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and serves as the Crowley Family Endowed Chair and Surgeon-in-chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute.

Gerard Doherty began his research in the 1990s in the laboratory, studying interferon gamma, cytokines and TNF-alpha in tumours. Alongside his clinical career, he has transitioned to clinical and translational studies of endocrine tumours, particularly pancreatic NETs, adrenal cortical cancers, hyperparathydoidism, and MEN1.

Gerard Doherty is involved in the work of consensus statements and guidelines in endocrine tumours and has held leadership roles in many professional associations, including President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES) and President of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons (IAES). For more than 20 years, he has collaborated closely with researchers at the Faculty of Medicine, enabling visiting professorships at both Harvard and University of Michigan, thereby enabling scientific collaboration on clinical materials for rare diseases.

Hussein Kidanto is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Aga Khan University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Throughout his career, he has worked as an obstetrician alongside his research, establishing him as a recognised researcher of international relevance to practitioners and policy makers alike. Dr Kidanto is a visionary advocate for the importance of higher education and research in international women’s and maternal health.

Hussein Kidanto has collaborated with Uppsala University for over two decades in both research and higher education, and has raised research issues in the globally neglected area of obstetric and newborn care in resource-limited settings with high disease burdens. Professor Kidanto has been a pioneer in his focus on improving care for vulnerable women and newborns, demonstrating how clinical delivery practices and perinatal monitoring methods can be adapted for local, low-resource healthcare contexts across Africa.

He has developed technological aids for healthcare that have had medical and structural benefits for mothers, newborns and healthcare teams. His research has highlighted the critical moments that improve the quality of care and demonstrates the importance of continuous feedback on healthcare professionals’ practices - saving lives without increasing costs.

Hussein Kidanto has given countless students a deeper understanding of the possibilities of conducting research and quality improvement work to achieve the UN’s global health goals in maternal and child health. Over the years, many medical, nursing and master’s students from Uppsala University have been supervised by Hussein Kidanto in Tanzania.

Raymond Schinazi is the Frances Winship Walters Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, and a world leader in nucleoside chemistry in antiviral drug discovery. His research has focused on developing treatments for infections caused by various viruses, such as HIV, hepatitis B and C, herpes, dengue, Zika, chikungunya and SARS-CoV-2. He holds over 100 US patents, resulting in 26 new drug applications.

Professor Schinazi is best known for his groundbreaking work on drugs for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, all of which are approved by the FDA. More than 90% of patients treated for HIV take at least one of the medications he developed. He has founded several biotechnology companies focused on discovering and developing antiviral therapies, including Pharmasset Inc, Triangle Pharmaceuticals and Idenix Pharmaceuticals.

Raymond Schinazi has served on the Presidential Commission on AIDS and has received numerous awards, including four honorary doctorates and the prestigious Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, awarded by the French government. He is internationally recognised as one of the most influential figures in life sciences, and his impact on global health is outstanding.