Alex Karatassas is a General Surgeon with special interests in minimally invasive surgery applied to hernia and colorectal. He has been an advocate for MIS and undertakes both laparoscopic and robotic procedures. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Masters of Minimally Invasive Surgery course University of Adelaide and a Senior Surgeon on the Colorectal Unit The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. His current interests include setting up a Multidisciplinary Hernia Unit, developing a Mesh Tissue Integration Index and National patient outcome/ mesh registry database and investigating the effects of biofilm on mesh. He is involved in teaching laparoscopic and robotic surgery to both registrars and surgeons.