Robert Winston

About

Robert has had an extraordinary and illustrious career. He is an English professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and politician. He has published over 300 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and holds honorary doctorates from sixteen universities.

Professor Robert Winston (Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston) attended St Paul’s School (London), later graduating from The London Hospital Medical College, University of London, in 1964 with a degree in medicine and surgery and achieved prominence as an expert in human fertility.

Winston joined Hammersmith Hospital as a registrar in 1970 as a Wellcome Research Fellow.

After conducting research as Professor of Gynaecology at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1980, he returned to the UK setting up the IVF service at Hammersmith Hospital which pioneered various improvements in this technology, and became Dean of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London until its merger with Imperial College in 1997.

He was the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from 2004 to 2005.

Winston is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng) and Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG), and of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FRCP), and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS Edin), Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (FRCPS Glasg), and the Institute of Biology (FIBiol).

Winston was the presenter of many BBC television series, including Superhuman, The Secret Life of Twins, Child of Our Time, Human Instinct, and the BAFTA award-winner The Human Body.

On returning to academic medicine, he developed tubal microsurgery and various techniques in reproductive surgery, including sterilization reversal.

He was appointed as a new chair at Imperial College, Professor of Science and Society.

He is a member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council where he chairs the Societal Issues Panel, and patron of The Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Winston’s documentary Threads of Life won the international science film prize in Paris in 2005.

He presented the BBC documentary “Walking with Cavemen”, a major BBC series that was endorsed by leading anthropologists and scientists.

His BBC series Child Against All Odds explored ethical questions raised by IVF treatment. In 2008, he presented Super Doctors, about decisions made every day in frontier medicine.

Among many BBC Radio 4 programmes, he has appeared on The Archers radio soap as a fertility consultant. He appeared on The Wright Stuff as a panelist in February 2011. Winston is featured in the Symphony of Science episode Ode to the Brain. He also took part in 2011 TV series Jamie’s Dream School.

Together with Carol Readhead of the California Institute of Technology, Winston is researching male germ cell stem cells and methods for their genetic modification at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London.

Robert Winston is Chairman of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Trust and chairs the Women-for-Women Appeal charity.

One of the most respected figures in pushing public understanding of science, Robert Winston is in demand as an after dinner speaker and event host.