Lara Fairall is the founding Director of the Knowledge Translation Unit (KTU).

She left clinical medicine at the height of denialism about the AIDS pandemic in South Africa when it seemed unlikely that ART would be made available outside clinical trials. Instead, she joined the UCT Lung Institute to localise, implement and evaluate a South African version of the WHO Practical Approach to Lung Health. This became known as PALSA.

Over the last two decades, Lara has led the expansion of PALSA to comprehensive PHC across the life course, and its evolution into PACK. She has further contributed to all aspects of PACK’s development, most notably leading its evaluation in 9 pragmatic trials and other studies. She also established a partnership with the BMJ in order to underpin the evidence-base of the clinical recommendations made in PACK and to help spread PACK to other LMICs.

Lara is passionate about Universal Health Coverage and support for health workers, specifically to empower them to connect the communities they serve with the evidence-based care they need.

She is also honorary Professor in the Department of Medicine at UCT and Professor and Chair in Global Healthcare Delivery in the King’s Global Health Institute at King’s College London.