Bajoran hospital administrator and former resistance member whose knowledge helped cure the aphasia virus that crippled Deep Space Nine.
Surmak Ren is a Bajoran doctor who served in the resistance during the Cardassian occupation and later became the administrator of a hospital on Bajor. In Babel, the crew learns that a replicator device on Deep Space Nine is spreading an aphasia virus designed during the occupation by one of Surmak's fellow resistance fighters, a doctor who has since died.
Kira beams Surmak aboard her runabout, and he refuses to help until she points out that he has now been exposed to the airborne virus himself. Working against his own deadline, Surmak develops the antidote that restores speech to the station's population.