Professor Zulfiqar Bhutta of the Aga Khan University (AKU) has been ranked among the top 100 medicine scientists in the first edition of the top scientists ranking for medicine published by Research.com, one of the major knowledge centres for research.
He is the only scientist from Pakistan and the low- and middle-income countries who made it to the top 100.
“As is the case for other recent recognitions, though a personal recognition, this ranking reflects the achievements of scores of young researchers and faculty members across the world who have worked with me on problems of the most marginalized and impoverished women and children in poor communities,” saidd Professor Bhutta, who is the founding director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health and the Institute for Global Health and Development at AKU.
Professor Bhutta is also the co-director of the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, Robert Harding Chair in Global Child Health and Policy, and a Senior Scientist in the Child Health Evaluative Sciences programme at The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.
He is one of the original members of AKU’s faculty since the establishment of the University who began his career at AKU in 1986.
Between 1996 and 2002, Professor Bhutta and his team at the University undertook extensive community outreach and research program in an urban slum of Karachi and several rural areas of Pakistan. These programs were expanded to many regions and provinces of Pakistan as well as other low- and middle-income countries.
His work has been the foundation of multiple international guidelines, including changing World Health Organization policy on the treatment of persistent diarrhoea and malnutrition along with establishing lady health workers (LHW) as foundational members of community-based interventions in Pakistan, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Awards & Achievements
2020 – Fellow of the Royal Society, United Kingdom
2018 – Distinguished International Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH)
2018 – Member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM)
2004 – Fellow of Pakistan Academy of Sciences