Ajay Kakkar, Baron Kakkar

Ajay Kumar Kakkar, Baron Kakkar, was born in 1964 in Dartford and is an emeritus professor of surgery at University College London and a life peer. He is the son of Vijay Kakkar, a professor of vascular surgery and a pioneer of low-molecular-weight heparin therapy, and of a consultant anaesthetist, and he followed his father as a surgeon and medical researcher. He studied at King's College London, earning a BSc in basic medical sciences with pharmacology in 1985 and an MBBS with Distinction in Surgery in 1988, and Imperial College London awarded him a PhD in 1998 for a thesis on tissue factor, thrombin generation and cancer. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1992 and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 2011. He chairs King's Health Partners, directs the Thrombosis Research Institute in London and has worked with the NHS on its strategy to prevent venous thromboembolism. He was created a life peer in 2010 and sits on the crossbenches of the House of Lords.