Brian Sommerlad qualified in medicine in Sydney, Australia. He went to the UK in 1968 to further his training and stayed. He is an honorary consultant plastic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London.
He has been caring for children with clefts for 45 years – in the UK and by regularly working with colleagues in many less privileged countries over the last 22 years.
His ongoing research interests have centred around palate anatomy and function and attempting to improve the speech outcomes of palate repair.
He was co-founder in 2007 and is chairman of the UK charity CLEFT which funds research into the causes and treatment of clefts and supports cleft centres in several low-resource countries.
