Roles and background

Health background

Professor Prokar Dasgupta Health Background

Prokar Dasgupta has worked as a robotic surgeon/consultant urologist for many years, in the UK and India. He is the King’s Health Partners Foundation Professor of Surgery and the Chairman of the Institute of Robotic Surgery at King’s College London (KCL), one of the premier international institutes, established by the Vattikuti Foundation, Detroit, USA.

Prokar did his surgical training in Kolkata, India followed by a Medical Research Council UK lecturership in Uro-Neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queens Square, London where he completed a research doctorate, followed by specialist training in Urology at Guy’s Hospital and the Institute of Urology in London. Prokar has worked as an urologist at Guy’s Hospital and a senior academic surgeon at KCL for 20 years.

Continued Health Background

Prokar Dasgupta developed an international reputation as an academic robotic surgeon, scientist, educator, polymath and Editor of the British Journal of Urology International. He chaired the European Association of Urology Robotic Congress in London in 2012, the Olympic year. He served on the Surgical Specialty Board of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS), Specialist Advisory Committee for Urology UK, Joint Committee for Surgical Training UK and KCL’s diversity board within his school.

Prokar has also been the Regional Specialist Advisor to the Royal College of Surgeons of England and councillor and President of the Hunterian Society. He served on the Medical Advisory Boards of Allergan and Intuitive Surgical Robotics Epicentre and as Chief Scientific Officer of Proximie, an Augmented Reality company. Prokar is a mentor for the UK National Clinical Entrepreneurship Program.

Prokar is now the surgical chair on the joint Guy’s/St.Thomas’/KCL MedTech Hub Board which launched its ambitious program of developing the largest Tech Hub in London. This will create academic-industry partnerships to evaluate cutting edge technologies for patient benefit.

Prokar served on the Associated Parliamentary Committee for Surgical Services, House of Lords which highlighted the key role of simulation in patient safety, argued for sensible changes to the European Working Time Directive and championed the establishment of emergency surgery as a specialty.

Research background

Professor Prokar Dasgupta Research Background

Prokar Dasgupta has had 30 years’ experience at the earlier stages of his career working with large, multi-disciplinary research teams. His initial focus was on the immunology of Leishmaniasis and the role of effect of splenectomy on drug refractory disease.

While at Queens Square, London he studied C-nerve fibres in the human bladder and developed the “Dasgupta technique” of injecting Botulinum Toxin (Botox) into these nerves to treat overactivity with a flexible telescope, which has helped nearly 5 million patients world-wide.

Prokar is regarded as a pioneering robotic surgeon and has concentrated on improving the surgical research environment, developing large research-intensive institutes and successful industry-academic partnerships.

Continued Research Background

Prokar Dasgupta is chief investigator of three key randomised trials, CORAL (Cystectomy Open, Robotic and Laparoscopic), STAR-TRAK (Systematic Trans-Atlantic Randomised Tele-Robotic Access to the Kidney) and SIMULATE (Simulation in Learning and Teaching) in surgical sciences.

He directs the Prostate Cancer Research Centre at KCL with a major translational interest in the immunology of prostate cancer. He is the Ambassador for the KCL-Ericsson 5G Global Health Program in telemedicine and was awarded the Golden Telescope in 2006 for significant and lasting contribution to his specialty. In 2020 Prokar was awarded the St. Peter’s Medal, the highest award from the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS).

Leadership

Professor Prokar Dasgupta Leadership Roles in Universities

Prokar became the first Professor and Chair of Robotic Surgery at KCL and subsequently the Chairman of the King’s-Vattikuti Institute of Robotic Surgery. This has the tripartite mission of clinical, scientific and educational excellence. He leads a large team of clinician-scientists at one of Europe’s highest volume robotic institutes with its fellowship programmes being in high demand amongst international graduates.

Prokar established KCL as an Epicentre for robotic surgery, accredited by the European Association of Urology Robotic Surgery Board (ERUS) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Prokar holds adjunct Professorship in the Academic and Education Board of the Apollo Group of Hospitals in India and the honorary Directorship in Robotic Surgery in Apollo Gleneagles Hospital Kolkata.

He is a member of the academic board of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Rishikesh, India’s premier University Hospitals Group. He provides advice on the development and implementation of surgical curricula within India’s rapidly changing education system.

Prokar has been Visiting Surgeon and Professor to Maharajah Gaj Singh II of Jodhpur and advised his team on the modernisation of surgical services.

Prokar has built strong overseas links with Monash University, Australia’s largest University and hosted a number of its students at KCL. He is Visiting Professor to over 50 worldwide institutes particularly in China, Japan, The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Canada and USA. He has established multi-million collaborations in Europe, the Far East and Southern China.

Prokar is currently one of few Surgical Chairs within the Medical Research Council Centre for Transplantation at KCL, a vibrant university in Central London with over 6,000 staff and 25,000 students. It has a budget of nearly £800 million and is positioned at 5th for Impact amongst leading universities in the world. The launch of the MedTech Hub at KCL is one of KCL’s most ambitious projects with plans to extend into the Waterloo campus at St. Thomas’ Hospital over the next few years with a budget of nearly £110 million.

Charity

Professor Prokar Dasgupta Charity Roles

Prokar is a trustee to The Prostate Cancer Research, UK, which has a primary focus of finding bench to bedside solutions for advanced prostate cancer. This led to the inauguration to the Prostate Cancer Research of excellence at KCL, inaugurated by Sir Derek Jacobi in 2014.

He also supports two other UK charities, The Malcolm Coptcoat Trust as a trustee, to champion surgical innovation and The Urology Foundation as a major fund-raiser. Prokar raises funds through competing in marathon and ultra-distance events.

Prokar is also a trustee to The Prostate Cancer Foundation in Kolkata, India to raise awareness of prostatic diseases in West Bengal. One of its major achievements has been the publication of a blog on the last days of the poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore whose death from prostatic disease had hitherto been largely unknown. This had a major impact with the blog being read and shared over 200,000 times.

Commercial and industrial

Professor Prokar Dasgupta Commercial & Industrial Roles

Prokar was on the board of Intuitive Surgical as an advisor for many years. This is the world’s leading, multi-billion $ robotics company that has changed the way surgery is practised especially in patients with cancer. As a result robotic assisted radical prostatectomy has grown from a single institution in UK where he pioneered this procedure to >90% of procedures nationally over a 20 year period. He has advised and critically analysed the costs of robotic surgery and especially the societal benefits that it brings worldwide by reducing out of pocket costs.

Continued Commercial & Industrial Roles

Prokar has been on the advisory boards of newer robotic companies: Cambridge Medical Robotics, Medtronics, Auris, Surgenius and Google-Johnson & Johnson. This growing market is likely to increase the access to minimally invasive surgery for patient benefit.

He is Chief Scientific Officer for Proximie an augmented reality company with the mission of democratising surgery globally, QrATIv, a medical AI company and serves on the advisory board of Jiva.Ai a UK based start-up, improving radiological diagnoses through machine learning.

He served on the advisory boards of Allergan, manufacturers of Botox, the only FDA approved product and led key trials to assist with its licensing process.