Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Wellcome Lecturer in History of Medicine, University of Edinburgh

Petros Bouras-Vallianatos studied both pharmacy and ancient and Byzantine history before obtaining his PhD in the history of medicine in 2015 from King's College London. After holding a Wellcome Research Fellowship at the University of London, he was appointed to a permanent post in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. He has published widely on Byzantine medicine and pharmacology, cross-cultural medical exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, the reception of the classical medical tradition in the Middle Ages, and Greek palaeography, including the first descriptive catalogue of the Greek manuscripts at the Wellcome Library in London. He has recently co-edited Greek Medical Literature and its Readers: From Hippocrates to Islam and Byzantium (with Sophia Xenophontos; Routledge, 2018) and Brill's Companion to the Reception of Galen (with Barbara Zipser; Brill, 2019).

Winner, 2021 Prize for Young Historians of the International Academy of the History of Science

"Based on the surviving oeuvre of the aktouarios ('high-ranking physician') John Zacharias, Petros Bouras-Vallianatos describes in great detail and with profound knowledge the unique status and originality of Byzantine medicine in relation to, and in exchange with, other medieval medical cultures, pointing to the structures of their mutual influences as well as their dependence on social and cultural factors and developments...Bouras-Vallianatos offers an excellent contribution to the understanding of Byzantine medical culture. In sum, Innovation in Byzantine Medicine offers [...] plentiful inspiration for further research in the field of Byzantine medicine." - Isabel Grimm-Stadelmann, The Journal of Hellenic Studies

"This monograph is, and will likely remain, the most extensive treatment of John Zacharias...I am not only convinced by the argument that John Zacharias used various epistemological and literary means to make his texts original, practical and accessible; but I am also pleased to note that Petros Bouras-Vallianatos as a writer is as original, practical and accessible as the subject of his research." - Koray Durak, Medical History