In 2018, we worked with Bill Gates on a special issue of TIME dedicated to the power of optimism. Gates’s view, shared by many who contributed to the issue, was that people are prepared to focus when things go wrong and when things don’t work. Sometimes this attention distracts us from the moments when progress is being made. Journalists are victims of this phenomenon as much as anyone else.
As we put together this issue, I was reminded of the conversations with Gates that led to this project. David Agus and Arianna Huffington, our team of health correspondents and editors, led by Emma Barker and Mandy Oaklander, spent months consulting sources and experts around the world to select the 100 most influential individuals in the world of health. right now. The result is TIME100 Health, a community of leaders from all sectors – scientists, doctors, advocates, educators, and policymakers, among others – dedicated to creating tangible, credible change for a healthier population. Together, they are a reminder that many things are going right, and their work is enough to inspire belief that the world of healthcare is in the midst of a golden age of achievement and transformation.
While the global pandemic has made painfully clear the distances we still have to travel to create a healthy and safe world, our emergence from this period has also shed light on the many ways in which humanity is progressing. Renewed investment and attention are driving a boom in drug discovery and disease eradication.
TIME100 Health includes a group of scientists – Dan Drucker, Joel Habener, Jens Juul Holst and Svetlana Mojsov – whose discoveries led to GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs like Ozempic; Khaled Kabil, who ran a program that freed Egypt from hepatitis C infections despite the country having one of the highest rates in the world just 10 years ago; French neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine and Swiss neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch, who created a brain-spine implant that allowed a paralyzed man to walk again; Peter Attia, who may be the reason his friend is adopting a high-protein diet; Jonathan Haidt, whose best-selling book The anxious generation is leading a call to ban cell phones in schools and keep children off social media until they turn 16; and immunobiologist Akiko Iwasaki, one of the lead Long COVID researchers, who is developing a nasal vaccine against COVID-19 that she hopes can completely prevent infection – and therefore long-term symptoms. Innovation in healthcare, like this list, reflects the best of humanity: people using all their resources and ingenuity to help each other live better.
The introduction of TIME100 Health is part of our ongoing effort to expand TIME100, the world’s most influential community, into the sectors that can most help shape our future – artificial intelligence, climate and health. Whether you know the people on this list or it’s your first time reading about them, their work is changing the lives of people in their community and around the world. We are excited to announce the first TIME100 Health and look forward to May in New York City when we bring this group together in person for the first time.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
