Hemoglobal is a fully registered charitable organization working to provide medical equipment and treatment to Sri Lankan children with thalassemia, an inherited life-threatening blood disorder. Based in Toronto Canada since November 2004, Hemoglobal is made up of a team of international thalassemia health professionals including Drs. Olivieri and Weatherall.
PROFESSOR SIR DAVID WEATHERALL
Sir David John Weatherall is a British physician and researcher in molecular genetics, haematology, pathology and clinical medicine. His research concentrated on the genetics of the haemoglobinopathies and, in particular, a group of inherited haematological disorders known as the thalassemias that are associated with abnormalities in the production of globin (the protein component of haemoglobin). Weatherall is one of the world's experts on the clinical and molecular basis of the thalassemias and the application of this information for the control and prevention of these diseases in the developing countries.
In 1974 Weatherall was appointed Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford, and, in 1992, he assumed the most prestigious chair, that of Regius Professor of Medicine, from 1992 to 2000.
He was knighted in 1987, received the Commandeur de l'Ordre de la Couronne in 1994 and the Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire in 2000. Weatherall has received 23 honourary degrees from universities in the UK and overseas.
In 1989 Weatherall founded the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford, which was renamed the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in his honour in the year 2000 upon his retirement. He then became Chancellor of Keele University. In 2002 Weatherall wrote a major report on the application of genomics for global health for the World Health Organization. Sir David is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. In 2006 a working group report under the Chairmanship of Professor David Weatherall concludes that there is a strong scientific case to maintain biomedical research activities using non-human primates in carefully selected areas.
Weatherall has received numerous awards to date including but not limited to, the Feldberg Foundation Award for Bioscience in 1984, The Royal Medal in 1989, the Helmut Horten Research Award (jointly with S. Orkin & Y.W. Kan) in 1995, the Prince Mahidol Prize in Medicine in 2002, the Allen Award of the American Society of Human Genetics in 2003 and the Mendel Medal from The Genetics Society in 2006.
