Introducing our new patrons
We are delighted that two eminent people have recently agreed to become patrons– Professor Ghulam Mufti, Professor of Haematology at King’s College Hospital in London – and Tariq Ahmad, The Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon.
Professor Ghulam Mufti
Professor Mufti – whom many of you already know as his patients – is an internationally renowned specialist in MDS. He is the head of the haematology department at King’s College Hospital in London. He commenced his training in haematology at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and Hammersmith Hospital Royal Postgraduate Medical School. Because of his interest in pre-leukaemic states, in 1981 the Leukaemia Research Fund awarded him a fellowship in Bournemouth, Southampton & Royal Postgraduate Medical School. He was appointed as senior lecturer in haematological medicine and consultant haematologist in May 1985.
He has extensive clinical and research expertise in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), leukaemias, and lymphomas. The Unit at King’s is one of the leading centres for Bone Marrow Transplantation in MDS. He heads the research groups and works with a team of nine other professors who are experts in various medical fields including gene therapy, stem cell biology, bone marrow transplants, plasma cell dyscrasias and immunotherapy of myeloid malignancies, in particular MDS. Professor Mufti also leads 86 researchers who focus on treating leukaemia. He has published over 400 original papers and chapters in scientific journals and textbooks on leukaemias. He devised the prognostic score (Bournemouth score for MDS) and contributed to the IPSS scoring system. He was a member of the working group that produced national and international guidelines on the treatment and prognosis of MDS. He is a founding member of the Board of the International Myelodysplastic Foundation of which his Department at King’s College Hospital is a recognised Centre of Excellence.
Prof Mufti adds: “The MDS Newsletter is an emotional milestone for me, for MDS as a disease has at last come to the forefront of scientific and translational research. I am confident that the research will translate into real therapeutic benefit to all our MDS sufferers not just in the UK but worldwide.”
Lord Tariq Ahmad
Tariq Ahmad’s career has been in the City of London in corporate banking and marketing and currently serves as Marketing and Strategy Director at a leading commodity and financial futures and options firm, Sucden Financial, where he has been a member of executive team since 2004. A business graduate, he has extensive experience of financial services and the City spanning over almost 20 years. Joining NatWest in 1991, he spent almost 10 years with the Group in corporate banking and strategy roles before joining the US funds and investment house, Alliance Bernstein. Lord Ahmad, was Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party (2008-2010), has been active in local government in London, contested Croydon North in 2005 and became a Conservative Life Peer in the House of Lords in 2011. He is a Member of the Institute of Directors and is greatly involved in charity work.
