Sir. Magdi Habib Yacoub was born in Cairo in 1935. His father was a surgeon himself, which provided Sir Yacoub a bigger inspiration for choosing this profession. He received his medical education in Cairo University, and decided to become a cardiac surgeon.

Then he moved to Britain where he became a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Harefield Hospital in 1962. He became a professor at the National Heart and Lung Institute in 1986, and was involved in developing the techniques of heart and heart-lung transplantation. Sir Magdi has performed the highest number of transplant operations in the world. Thanks to him, Hare field Hospital became a leading transplant center where more than 200 operations are preformed every year. He became a director of medical research and education in 1 992 and it was in the same year when he was knighted. 

Sir Magdi has hundreds of published articles based on his own research.

 

Sir Magdi started "Chain of Hope" in UK in 1995. Chain of Hope is a charity medical foundation that aims to help children who suffer from life-threatening heart diseases with medical and surgical treatment free of charge. The charity is called Chain of Hope, because of the involvement of a chain of people in this project, including money donors, medical donors etc. In his childhood, Prof. Sir MagdiYacoub saw children suffering from life-threatening heart diseases and was deeply affected by the miserable and painful life they lived. He therefore decided to offer hope to those children by establishing the Chain of Hope. Members of the Chain of Hope have helped in the diagnosis of thousands of children and performed 600 open heart surgeries.

 

The initial step in the procedure leading to the treatment of the children was to appoint a local doctor in the child's country to make the diagnosis, and examine his/her case and make all the required arrangements to bring the child to UK for treatment. About 2 to 3 children are received from the developing countries to London for operations every month. When a child is sent to the U.K., an escort from the child's family is also sent along with the patient. The "Chain" tries its best to get free or discounted tickets to UK, for both the child and the escort.

 

The people who are recruited by the Chain of Hope are volunteers who work as "Hosts to Families", and provide services for the child. The final step in the Chain of Hope is the medical team, which dedicates its full time and effort voluntarily to help the children. 

 

The Centre has introduced many new developments to improve the standard and the facilities offered by the center and to help the children in more technically advanced ways. The "Chain" trains the medical teams in both UK and overseas. They also build medical facilities locally and in host countries so that the children would receive treatment in their own country. The "Chain" also sends volunteer medical team to cardiac centers around the world, such as to Egypt, Ethiopia etc., to operate on children there. In Prof. Sir Magdi's team there are 75 scientists 

continuously working on research to find new ways/methods to improve heart transplantation and to repair damaged hearts.

 

Sir MagdiYacoub has performed more transplants than any other surgeon in the world and, as a scientist, his interest in the basic mechanisms of heart structure and function in health and disease has improved transplant surgery and patient care. After having retired from performing surgery at the age of 65, he continues to act as a high profile consultant and ambassador to support the transplant surgery. 

In     2006 Sir Magdi briefly came out of retirement and got an opportunity to advise on a complicated procedure which required removing a transplanted heart from a patient whose own heart had recovered to functioning as it had not been removed while transplanting the second one a decade after its transplantation.

 

He has received many civil honors like OBE in 1991, Order of Pakistan, Order of Lebanon, City of Parma, and City of Athens. Sir MagdiYacoub is highly appreciated by Princess Chantal of Hanover, Countess Noemi MaroneCinzano, Omar Sharif, Mick Jagger, and Richard Gere for his charitable work.

 

Currently he is the Founder and Director of Research of "The MagdiYacoub Institute, in London  & Middlesex and founder patron of "The Chain of Hope Charity" in UK. Chain of Hope exists to provide children suffering from life-threatening disease with corrective surgery and treatment to which they do not have access.

 

It is therefore, for these outstanding contributions that Prof. Sir MagdiYacoub deserves the Harridan Award for Volunteers in Humanitarian Medical Services for 2005-2006.