Owase Jeelani | |
|---|---|
| Medical career | |
| Field | Paediatric Neurosurgery |
| Institutions | Great Ormond Street Hospital |
Noor ul Owase Jeelani is a Kashmiri-British neurosurgeon and academic. He is a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) and was the Head of the Department of Neurosurgery from 2012 until 2018. [1] He is Professor of Paediatric Neurosurgery at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. [2] He leads the FaceValue research group in Craniofacial Morphometrics, device design, and clinical outcomes. [3]
Dr Jeelani is known for his work separating craniopagus twins in 2011, [4] 2019, [5] 2020 [6] 2021, [7] 2022 [8] and 2024. [9]
In 2019, he founded the charity Gemini Untwined. [10] In 2025, Dr Jeelani was awarded an MBE in the King's Birthday Honours list for outstanding contributions to neurosurgery and global health. [11]
Dr Jeelani obtained his Medical Degree in 1997 from the University of Nottingham. [1] His basic surgical training took place in Nottingham and Southampton, and his Neurosurgical and Craniofacial training took place in the UK and Canada. [1] He undertook fellowships in Paediatric Neurosurgery and Craniofacial Surgery at GOSH and at Sick Kids, Toronto. He also holds a Master's degree in Medical Law from the University of Glasgow from 2005 and an MBA from INSEAD in 2002. [1]
In 2012 Dr Jeelani was appointed as the Lead Clinician for the Department of Neurosurgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital. [1] He was named in ‘The Times’ top 100 surgeons in the UK in 2011 [12] and the top 100 children's doctors in 2012. [13]
He led the successful separation of seven sets of conjoined twins: Rital and Ritag in 2011, [4] Safa and Marwa in 2019, [14] Yigit and Derman in 2020 [6] and Israeli twins in 2021. [15] In 2022 Jeelani was part of a UK and Brazilian team that separated Bernardo and Arthur Lima, two Brazilian twins, in a 33 hour operation. [16] On July 19, 2024, Jeelani lead a team at Ankara Bilkent City Hospital in Turkey, using mixed reality technology, to complete a 14-hour second stage surgery to separate Pakistani twins, Minal and Mirha. [9] These procedures were covered extensively by international media outlets. [17] [18] [19]
Since 2012 he has been the co-director of FaceValue, a research programme based at University College London (UCL) that specialises in designing machine learning algorithms to improve surgical outcomes. [20]
In 2007, Dr Jeelani invented CranioXpand, a spring distractor technology for minimally invasive Craniofacial surgery. [21] The IP was obtained by KLS Martin, a medical devices company. [22]
Dr Jeelani undertakes healthcare advisory work for the NHS and other private organisations. [23] In 2003 he founded a strategy consulting company, Interface Health Solutions.
In 2019, he co-founded Gemini Untwined, a global charity dedicated to supporting the research and treatment for CPT twins. [24]