Who is Majdi Yacoub?

Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub (born16 November 1935) is an Egyptian-British retired professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Imperial College London.

He is best known for his early work in repairing heart valves with surgeon Donald Ross, adapting the Ross procedure, where the diseased aortic valve is replaced with the person's own pulmonary valve, devising the arterial switch operation (ASO) in transposition of the great arteries, and establishing the heart transplantation centre at Harefield Hospital in 1980 with a heart transplant for Derrick Morris, who at the time of his death was Europe's longest-surviving heart transplant recipient.

Sir.Majdi Yacoub subsequently performed the UK's first combined heart and lung transplant in 1983.

Following retirement from the National Health Service (NHS), he continued to operate on children through his charity, Chain of Hope. In 2008, he co-founded the Magdi Yacoub heart foundation, which launched the Aswan Heart project.