Dr. Kazem Behbehani PhD, FRCPath (UK)

Partner and Co-founder Leader Health

 

Kazem was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Mathilda and Terence Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London. In Kuwait, he was Professor of Immunology and Medical Parasitology at Kuwait Medical Faculty, the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and the Vice President of Kuwait University. He was also Deputy Director General of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and a member of the Management Board of the IBM Scientific Centre. In addition, he was Director of the Kuwait WHO AIDS Collaborative Centre and a member of the WHO Global Programme on AIDS (GPA) Management Committee in Geneva. In Boston, in the United States of America he was a visiting Scholar/Professor at the Harvard Medical School.

 

At WHO headquarters in Geneva (1990-2005), he worked on vaccine research in the Global Programme on AIDS, and subsequently became the Programme Manager of Tropical Disease Research (TDR), the Director of both the Division of the Control of Tropical Diseases and the Eastern Mediterranean Liaison Office and then WHO Assistant Director-General, External Relations and Governing Bodies (2003-5). He served as member of the WHO Board of Appeal, Secretary of a number of intergovernmental meetings (e.g. Tobacco Convention), as well as Secretary of several of the committees and subcommittees of the WHO Executive Board and the World Health Assembly.

 

In 2005, he was the Chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) External Panel for the Evaluation of the Human Health Programme.

 

He continues to be a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), a member of several scientific and technical bodies including the European Academy of Arts, Science, and Humanities, and the trustee of a number of international charitable bodies and foundations.

 

He is a member of the Ethics Review Committee (2005- ) of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Environment and Public Health, Harvard University (2006-2010).

 

He is the recipient of several awards and scientific recognitions, including The Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences’ (KFAS) “Best Researcher in Medicine” award. He has served as a member of the Editorial Board of a number of scientific journals. He has more than 100 scientific publications and one book on science and technology to his credit. He maintains an interest in environmental and health issues

 

Kazem promotes healthcare management, the application of information technology to healthcare delivery (eHealth) and the development of interactive educational materials for the public, professionals and for medical education through eLearning.