Dr. Daar is Professor of Public Health Sciences and of Surgery at the University of Toronto. He is also Senior Scientist and co-director of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre Program on Life Sciences and Global Health, University Health Network, and Director of Ethics and Policy at the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine.

After medical school in London, England, he went to the University of Oxford where he did postgraduate clinical training in surgery and also in internal medicine, a doctorate in transplant immunology/immunogenetics, and a fellowship in transplantation. He was a clinical lecturer in Oxford for several years before going to the Middle East to help start two medical schools. He was the foundation Chair of Surgery in Oman for a decade before moving to the University of Toronto in 2001.

He has co-authored five books (on tumour markers; surgical radiology; ethical, legal and social issues in organ transplantation; bioindustry ethics; and nutritional genomics) and has over 300 publications in immunology, immunogenetics, organ transplantation, surgery, and bioethics. He works in various advisory or consulting capacities with the UN, the World Health Organization and UNESCO, and is a member of the African Union High Level Panel on Modern Biotechnology. He recently completed, as chair, a report of the External Review Committee of the WHO/World Bank/UNDP/UNICEF Special Program on Tropical Diseases Research and Training.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences and a Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto. He is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Human Genome Organization. He holds the official world record for performing the youngest cadaveric donor kidney transplant.

In 1999 he was awarded the Hunterian Professorship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 2005 he was awarded the Anthony Miller Prize for Research Excellence at the University of Toronto and also in 2005 the UNESCO Avicenna Prize for Ethics of Science.

His current research interests are in ways of avoiding knowledge divides and in the exploration of how genomics and other biotechnologies can be used effectively to ameliorate global health inequities.