Dr. Xand van Tulleken

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Xand van Tulleken's Biography

Dr Xand’s main interests and expertise lie in Public Health, Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Anthropology and is one of the BBC’s leading science presenters having worked on many flagship Health & Science programmes.

Alongside his twin brother Chris, Xand presents CBBC’s Operation Ouch! The series has been a huge global success, involving self-experimentation and lab work to find weird and wonderful ways of showing kids what goes on in hospitals, and inside our bodies. The eighth series has just started filming, previous series having won many nominations and two children's BAFTA awards plus a Broadcast Award for Best Children's programme. Their Operation Ouch tours of Australia in January 2018 and 2020 were massive hits, selling out all venues including the Sydney Opera House. The Operation Ouch UK residency at The Apollo Theatre in London's West End also received rave reviews. 

Chris and Xand launched their first podcast, A Thorough Examination with Drs Chris and Xand and reached the top spot across a variety of podcast charts. The audio series sees Chris send Xand on a journey to explore his relationship with ultra-processed food. Xand meets the world’s leading experts on food, weight, taste and addiction whilst going on a UPF binge in a bid to see if he can learn to hate it.

During 2020, Xand hosted the hugely successful live daytime shows Morning Live and Healthcheck UK Live on BBC One, as well as exploring the very personal side of COVID-19 alongside Chris, in the BBC One documentary Surviving the Virus: My Brother & Me. He also hosted the quick turnaround documentaries Coronavirus: How to Isolate Yourself, When Will Lockdown End? and How to Avoid a Second Wave for Channel 4.

In 2019, Xand and Chris, developed and hosted 'Twinstitute' for BBC Two, which saw the pair put competing health theories to the test with the help of 30 other pairs of identical twins. They also hosted 'Planet Child' a ‘landmark perspective on global childhood development' for ITV. 

Xand's Truth About Carbs aired in 2018 on BBC One, whilst in 2017 Xand’s solo projects included a thrilling anthropology / adventure series, Expedition Volcano, for BBC2 and a BBC1 current affairs film, Fighting For Air,  about the horrific levels of pollution in British cities,  and how it affects us and our children. Both programmes were critically acclaimed.

Last year saw Xand publish no less than three new books – How to Lose Weight Well, to accompany the hit Channel 4 series; Operation Ouch! The HuManual - a book all about human biology for children; and Secrets of the Human Body which tied in with his and Chris’ ground-breaking BBC2 Science series. Over Christmas 2021, Chris and Xand will be taking Operation Ouch! back to the West End.

Xand's first solo Horizon about the online dating phenomenon in 2016 gained him many admirers! 2016 also saw Chris and Xand report on the harrowing winter migrant crisis in Frontline Doctors for BBC One, and Xand presented his second solo Horizon on Doping in Sport.  Xand’s next Horizon for 2018 will explore the sensitive issue of Male suicide.

In the US, Xand has been a health reporter for CNN. He was at the forefront of the Ebola crisis, appearing on US networks including Al Jazeera, MSNBC, FOX5 and BBC world service. In 2016 he also filmed his first US series for MSNBC, ‘The Chain’, a series that dramatically unpicked real medical mysteries.

Xand and Chris grew up in London, they both studied medicine at Oxford University and Xand specialised in Tropical medicine. As a junior doctor he worked in the genocide in Darfur and this inspired a passion for the politics and medicine of conflict zones which lead to his Academic appointment at Fordham in the US. He has now moved back to London to concentrate on writing, Broadcasting, and healthcare in the UK. Xand is also currently a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.