Who We Are

Technology and medical expertise have improved tremendously over the past few decades, such that many craniopagus twins can now be separated successfully.

Directors

Mr Noor Ul Owase Jeelani

MBA, MPhil (Medical Law), FRCS (Neurosurg.)

Founder and Director

Owase was the lead neurosurgeon for the successful separation of the Sudanese craniopagus twins Rital and Ritag in 2011 and Pakistani craniopagus twins Safa and Marwa in 2019.

He is a Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeon and has worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) since 2000. He was the Head of Department of Neurosurgery from 2012-2018.

Owase’s specialist areas of interest are craniopagus twins, craniofacial surgery, neuro-oncology and CSF and ICP pathologies. He is a director of the FaceValue team at UCL ICH, with a research focus of studying 3D morphometrics and designing bespoke cranial distractors. He is the inventor of CranioExpand (trademark), a bespoke internal cranial distractor system.

Owase was named in ‘The Times’ top 100 surgeons in the UK in 2011 and the top 100 children’s doctors in 2012.

Professor David Dunaway

CBE FDSRCS FRCS (Plast)

Professor David Dunaway was the lead craniofacial surgeon for the successful separation of the 3 sets of Craniopagus twins in 2006, 2011 and 2019.

In July of 2000, he joined the Plastic Surgery and Craniofacial Unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, where he now leads the Craniofacial Service. He is a member of the Adult Craniofacial Service based at University College London Hospital and the Eastman Dental Hospital.

David is also Professor of Craniofacial surgery at the UCL Institute of Child Health, where his research interests include the study of congenital facial deformity, craniosynostosis, three dimensional facial imaging and craniofacial distraction devices.

In 2016, David received a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to facial surgery.

Andrew Savile

Andrew Savile is a Legal Director at Mishcon de Reya LLP. Andrew advises individuals and families on a wide range of areas affecting their businesses and their personal affairs. Andrew advises on a number of charity and philanthropic entities which operate worldwide.

Kamal Rahman

Kamal Rahman is a Partner at Mishcon de Reya LLP (Solicitors) and advises international clients on residency and citizenship matters. Kamal has an international HNW client base which allows her to bring worthy philanthropic causes to the attention of potential donors.

Professor Richard Hayward

Professor Richard Hayward was a founding member of the multidisciplinary craniofacial unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the largest in the UK. He has been involved in the separation of three pairs of craniopagus twins. He presently supervises a variety of paediatric neurosurgical and craniofacial research projects.

Edward Kiely

Edward Kiely is a Paediatric Surgeon formerly based at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) in London, from 1983 till 2016. He is best known for the surgery of neuroblastoma and for the separation of conjoined twins. During his career he was involved in the assessment of 40 pairs of conjoint twins and the surgical separation of 27 pairs.

Clinical and Research Team

Dr Lara Van De Lande

Dr.Laravan de Lande, is a Medical Doctor currently doing a PhD at the Craniofacial Unit, UCL, Great Ormond Street Hospital and forms a bridge between technology and clinical practice in our team.

Dr Kish Mankad

Dr Kish Mankad is the Clinical Lead for Paediatric Neuroradiology at GOSH. He has a strong determination to improve clinical outcomes for children by ensuring quality and safety through research, innovation and enhanced use of enabling technologies.

Silvia Schievano

Silvia Schievano is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UCL & GOSH. Her main areas of research interest are in-silico and in-vitro patient specific modelling of congenital diseases and device treatments, and the integration of biomedical engineering methods into clinical decision making pathways. These skills were utilized in the planning and execution of the recent set of CPT twins.

Alessandro Borghi

Alessandro Borghi is a Senior Research Associate for the Institute of Child Health, currently working on the project FACEVALUE. He works on numerical modeling of craniofacial surgical procedures and on the design of novel distractors for the treatment of congenital craniofacial abnormalities. He was involved in the innovation pathways of the recent CPT surgery.

Felice D’Arco

Dr Felice D’Arco is a Consultant Paediatric Neuroradiologist at GOSH. His specialisms include: Inner ear malformations, Paediatric head and neck radiology, Paediatric brain tumours and Epilepsy.

Yean Chooi

Yean is a biomedical engineer in the GOSH 3D facility, analysing and combining 3D MRI and CT images to build virtual computer models of patients. Part of this involves 3D printing anatomically accurate models, an example of which were the 3D models used in the planning and separation of the recent set of CPT twins.

Deborah Zeitlin

Deborah is a General Paediatric Consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital. She specialises in the management of children with complex medical issues, stabilising critically unwell children and safeguarding children and young people. She sits on the European Paediatric Advanced Life Support committee that sets and delivers paediatric resuscitation training across the UK.

Kar-binh Ong

Dr Ong has been a consultant paediatric anaesthetist at Great Ormond Street Hospital since 2006 and has a special interest in anaesthesia for craniofacial surgery and the paediatric difficult airway.

Dr Sally Wilmshurst

Dr Wilmshurst has been a consultant in paediatric anaesthesia at Great Ormond Street since 2006 and has a special interest in anaesthesia for craniofacial surgery and Quality Improvement.

Dominic Thompson

Dominic Thompson is a paediatric neurosurgeon in the Department of Paediatric Neurosurgery, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Hon. Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Child Health, London. Dominic is an internationally known expert in the treatment of congenital disorders of the paediatric spine, in particular craniocervical junction anomalies and spinal dysraphism.

Laura Sinclair

Laura Sinclair has worked in the operating theatres at Great Ormond Street for 14 years, currently in the role as Matron for theatres, anaesthesia and pain with clinical expertise in craniofacial and plastic surgery. She aims to deliver the highest standard of care to an incredibly complex patient group through excellent and effective teamwork.

Cecelia Carney

Cecelia is a senior perioperative nurse who has worked at GOSH since 1998 and has over 25 years of experience theatres and in paediatric neurosurgery. Cecelia has been part of ground breaking advances in neurosurgery at GOSH and is committed to sharing her vast knowledge with nursing colleagues for the benefit of patients in need of this service.

Greg James

Greg James is a Consultant Neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital and a neuroscientist at University College London. His clinical and research interests are primarily craniofacial anomalies and cerebrovascular disease in children.

Dr Jane Herod

Dr Jane Herod FRCA MBBS BSc is a Consultant Paediatric Anaesthetist at a Great Ormond Street Hospital. She was the Anaesthetic lead for the recent set of craniopagus twins.

Occupational and Physiotherapy team

Kate Griffiths, Caroline Kermarrec, Asia Morton and Sophie Truman

The Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists worked jointly with the most recent set of craniopagus twins. The Occupational Therapists pay particular attention to providing assessment and intervention for cognitive skills and fine motor skills for daily life activities. The Physiotherapists pay particular attention to gross motor skills to enable participation in daily activities.

Camila Maglaya-Ocampo

Camila is a senior Anaesthetic Nurse with an interest in conjoined twin separation. She is involved in helping to organise the anaesthetic team which includes logistics, positioning and specialist equipment.

Zubair Tahir

Mr Zubair Tahir is an experienced consultant paediatric neurosurgeon, who is passionate about delivering the highest quality care to all children. He works as a consultant at Great Ormond Street hospital (GOSH) and Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK.

Dr Bridget Callahan

Dr Bridget Callaghan has been a Consultant General Paediatrician for twelve years and works in the International Division at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Dr Callaghan has been the General Paediatrician for two sets of Craniopagus twins, before and after separation and has considerable expertise in managing their complex physiologies in an holistic way. She also is expert in supporting parents and families and the wider multidisciplinary team through the challenging jouney of separation.

Endrit Pajaziti

Endrit Pajaziti is a first year PhD student at UCL doing research at the Institute of Cardiovascular Science. Before beginning his studies, he was based in GOSH as an assistant researcher on a Virtual Reality (VR) project for the most recent set of CPT twins.

Ellis Clarke

Ellis is the Charity Manager. She is involved with all aspects of the charity including charity development, project management, marketing, fundraising and logistics.

Juling Ong

Juling Ong is a craniofacial and paediatric plastic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. He trained in plastic surgery in London, and went on to undertake a craniofacial and paediatric plastic surgery training fellowship in the United States.

Neil Bulstrode

Neil is a Consultant Plastic Surgeon and the Lead Clinician for the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at GOSH and Honorary Associate Professor at GOSH-ICH. He was part of the team which separated the first of the craniopagus twins and also twins joined at the chest abdomen and limbs.