Richard Charles Horton is editor-in-chief of The Lancet. He is an honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University College London, and the University of Oslo.
After studying medicine at the University of Birmingham, he joined the liver unit at London’s Royal Free Hospital. In 1990, he became assistant editor of The Lancet and five years later become its editor-in-chief in the UK. He has been a medical writer for The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Review of Books.
In 2003, he published Second Opinion: Doctors, Diseases and Decisions in Modern Medicine, a book about controversies in modern medicine. In 2005 he wrote “Doctors in society: medical professionalism in a changing world”, an inquiry into the future of medical professionalism, for the Royal College of Physicians. He has served in various roles with the World Health Organization (WHO).