About Ara Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham
Ara Warkes Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham (Armenian: Արա Վարդգես Դարզի; born 7 May 1960) is an Armenian-British surgeon, academic, and politician. Lord Darzi is an academic surgeon and holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery at Imperial College London, specialising in the field of minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgery, having pioneered many new techniques and technologies. He is co-director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation and the NIHR Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre at Imperial College London. He has tried to reform the National Health Service (NHS) in England and is recognised internationally as an advocate for applying innovative reforms to health systems globally. Until resigning the whip in July 2019, Darzi sat as a Labour member of the House of Lords, but now sits as an independent peer because of his perception that Jeremy Corbyn failed to control antisemitism within Labour. In 2006, Darzi and his department were awarded the Rector's Research Excellence Award for their work on surgical robots. The University of Bath awarded Darzi an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering in 2008. In January 2014, Darzi was awarded the Qatari sash of Independence by the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in recognition of his contribution to the development of Qatar's health sector.
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