Peter Piot, MD, PhD in Microbiology, is Professor of Global Health and Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College London. From 1995 to 2008, he was Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), of which he was a founding member, and Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. He was also Associate Director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS. Under his leadership, UNAIDS became the principal ambassador for global action against AIDS. As part of the reform of the United Nations, he has involved ten UN organizations in the global fight against AIDS.

Dr Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976, and has conducted research programs in Africa on HIV infection, women's health and public health. He has been Professor of Microbiology and Public Health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels and the University of Nairobi. He has been a senior fellow at the University of Washington, a Ford Foundation Scholar in Residence and a senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He holds the Knowledge against Poverty Chair at the Collège de France (2009-2010) and is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

Dr Piot is a Fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), a Fellow of the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He is President of the King Baudoin Foundation, was made a Baron in 1995 and has published 16 books and over 500 scientific papers.