Honour for fertility expert

Leading fertility expert Professor Lord Winston is to be awarded an honorary degree from the University of St Andrews.

Winston, who will receive a Doctor of Science (DSc) on the afternoon of Wednesday 26 June 2002, is Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College, London and Director of NHS Research and Development for Hammersmith Hospital, one of the UK’s leading medical research centres.

As a peer, he takes the Government Whip (Lord Winston of Hammersmith since 1995) and speaks regularly in the House of Lords on education, science, medicine and the arts. He was the recent Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology and is a board member of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. He is also Chancellor elect of Sheffield Hallam University.

In addition, Robert Winston has presented a number of BBC science programmes including Your Life in Their Hands (five series), Making Babies, The Human Body (three BAFTAs and a Peabody award), Secret Life of Twins and, most recently, The Superhuman (October 2000 – Wellcome Award for Medicine and Biology) and Child of our Time.

His Queen Charlotte’s Appeal recently raised over £13 million to build and equip the most advanced reproductive research centre in Europe, with space for 130 scientists and doctors working to improve the health of women and babies.

Winston’s contribution to clinical medicine include the development of gynaecological microsurgery in the 1970s and his team has established various improvements in reproductive medicine, subsequently adopted internationally, particularly in the field of endocrinology, IVF and reproductive genetics.

His group’s research enabled families with a history of a particular genetic disease to have children free of fatal illnesses. Their achievements include the development of techniques to help families who have problems associated with gender (such as haemophilia and muscular dystrophy), single gene defects (such as cystic fibrosis) and chromosomal abnormalities. The team is now, amongst other things, developing methods for maturing eggs outside the body, a technique that will make IVF very much cheaper and more accessible and far less an intrusive procedure for would-be parents.

His awards include a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship (1973- 77); a Blair-Bell Lectureship RCOG (1978); the Cedric Carter Medal, Clinical Genetics Society (1993); the Victor Bonney Medal for contributions to surgery, Royal College of Surgeons (1993); and an Honorary Fellowship from Queen Mary and Westfield College. He has been a visiting professor at a number of overseas universities and is an honorary fellow of various learned societies overseas. He was Gold Medallist for the Royal Society of Health in 1998 and received the BMA Gold Award for Medicine in the Media in 1999 and, in the same year, the Faraday Gold Medal from The Royal Society. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998.

In addition, he has written in approximately 300 scientific publications in learned journals (including Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet), penned various books and writes regularly for the lay press.

His interests include directing theatre productions (National Directors’ Award, Edinburgh Festival 1969), matters of Jewish interest, classical music and skiing. He is involved with a number of UK charities, including the Imperial Cancer Research Fund of which he is a council member. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a member of The Athenaeum.

ENDS

Issued by Beattie Media on behalf of the University of St Andrews For more information please contact Claire Grainger on 01334 462530, 07730 415 015 or email [email protected] Ref: honwinston2002/standrews/chg/24may2 002