Professor James Richard Smith
Learn more about Professor James Richard Smith
Professor James Richard Smith
Consultant Gynaecological Surgeon, Imperial College, London
Professor J. Richard Smith MD, DSc, FRCOG is a Consultant Gynaecological Surgeon at the West London Gynaecological Cancer Centre, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College NHS Trust. He was Adjunct Associate Professor at the New York University School of Medicine from 2001 to 2021 and is currently Professor of Practice, Imperial College and Honorary Consultant in Transplantation Surgery at Oxford University Hospitals. Professor Smith graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1982 MB ChB and worked in various hospitals including Stobhill, Bellshill and the Royal Infirmary until 1988. He then obtained an MD from the University of Glasgow in 1992. He took up a consultant post at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in 1993. He is also an honorary consultant at the Royal Brompton Hospital. He moved to Charing X, Hammersmith/Queen Charlotte’s Hospitals in 2005 where he sub-specialised in oncology, and within this he specialised in gestational trophoblastic disease and ovarian germ cell tumours being the surgeon to the National Centre. During this time he co invented the procedure of radical abdominal trachelectomy and the Modified Strassman procedure to allow women with cervical cancer and rare uterine tumours respectively to retain their fertility rather than have the management at that time of a hysterectomy, both of these procedures are now performed worldwide. He is also involved with research related to endometrial transplantation, endometrial stem cell research and novel treatments for vulval cancers.
In 1997 he started research into uterine transplantation finally resulting in the UK’s first delivery of a baby girl, from a living donor (sister to sister donation) in 2025, followed by the delivery of the UK’s first baby, a boy, where the uterus came from a deceased donor. He is the Founder and Chairman of Womb Transplant UK Charity which funds the UK’s Uterine Transplant programme and leader of this research team. He is the co-surgical lead performing these procedures of which 6 have now been performed. This cumulative research was submitted as a DSc Thesis entitled Fertility Preservation and Restoration, graduating in 2024. He has a long-running interest in doctor-patient communication and has published 19 books for the public and 12 books for the medical profession (approx. 220,000 copies). He has over 200 peer reviewed publications as well as numerous reviews and articles. Royalties of current books go to the charity.
He has four children whom he loves dearly and spends his time between London, where he lives on a houseboat, and Scotland, where he lives at the south end of an island, in the middle of nowhere.
Social Media
Twitter : womb_transplant_uk
Instagram : @wombtransplant1
Weblinks
BBC News Article: 'A little miracle: First baby born in UK to woman with transplanted womb'
BBC iplayer link to "Extraordinary Portraits" featuring Grace and Amy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002tsnm/extraordinary-portraits-series-5-6-sister-donates-her-womb
