Iranian surgeon Farrokh Saidi, elected to TWAS in 1987, passed away on 2 August 2026. A native of the Islamic Republic of Iran, he received his higher education from Cornell University (USA, 1947–1950) and Harvard Medical School (USA, 1950–1954).

He carried out his surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a year of thoracic surgery training in Bristol, UK (1961). Upon his return to Iran, he became an associate professor of surgery at Pahlavi University School of Medicine (now Shiraz University) in Shiraz, where he established a general surgery residency programme.

In the early to mid-1990s, he founded the Iranian Society for the Study of Esophageal Cancer and conducted pioneering studies on esophageal cancer, aiming to address a cancer with an exceptionally high incidence in northeastern Iran. He was professor emeritus at Modarres Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

He previously served as chief surgeon at Haftom Tir Hospital, Tehran (1972–1985); Hunterian professor of surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1975); undersecretary of medical education at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Tehran (1975–1976); and chief of thoracic surgery at Modarres Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (1985–1999). He was a permanent member of the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences.

Cristina Serra