Science Question Time - Future of Drugs

Tuesday 25 October 2011

18:30 - 20:30

New Hunt's House, King's College London

 

Science Question Time is an exciting new venture between the Biochemical Society, the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) and staff at Imperial College London. At this, the fifth Science Question Time in London, we invited speakers and the audience to discuss the future of pharmaceuticals. This event formed part of the London Science Festival (LSF) 2011 events programme.

 

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After the event:

Searching Twitter for the hashtag #SciQT will provide you with a rich source of commentary from both during the event and the discussion following. #futuredrugs and #LSF11 were also used.

 

A podcast is available here (with thanks to Martin '@sociablephysics' Austwick for recording the event).

A storify (report made from compiling tweets) of the event is available here (thanks to staff at Nature).

 

An article about the event appeared in February's edition of The Biochemist, the Biochemical Society's member’s magazine. This edition was themed on drug discovery. An archive of policy articles which have featured in The Biochemist can be found here. All members of the Society receive a hard copy of the magazine six times a year.

 

Chair and panelists:

 

Clive is Professor of Pharmacology at King’s College London, and co-founder and chairman of the board of Verona Pharma, an AIM listed Company developing new drugs for the treatment of respiratory diseases. He is also a non-executive director of Helperby and Babraham Bioscience Technologies, as well as a trustee of the Babraham Institute. Clive is also the chairman of the Animal Science Group of the Society of Biology and a council member of Understanding Animal Research. He regularly consults to both the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

David is a Science Associate at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), of which he is also a Fellow, developing its Healthcare Innovation activities. He was formerly the Senior Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer, Sandwich, and previously received the RSC’s Inspiration and Industry Award for his pioneering efforts to excite and inspire students at all levels through the Discover Chemistry initiative. He also works as a consultant and is a visiting professor at the University of Reading.

James is the Director of Stratified Medicine at Cancer Research UK (CRUK). He also represents CRUK on the Technology Strategy Board’s Stratified Medicine Innovation Platform, the Department of Health’s Human Genomics Strategy Group, and Pfizer’s European Oncology Advisory Board. He was seconded to the Department of Health in 2008 to lead on economic and financial aspects of the Cancer Reform Strategy, and later developed CRUK's health strategy.

 

Becky is Head of Policy at the Association of Medical Research Charities, supporting members and developing the AMRC’s policy work and interactions with the medical research community across the UK and Europe. She also manages the All Party Parliamentary Group on Medical Research. Becky is a committee member of Stempra, sits on Rare Disease UK's management committee and is a member of the Understanding Animal Research policy subgroup. She blogs at Becky’s Policy Pages and can be found on Twitter.

Ilina Singh is Reader in Bioethics and Society at the London School of Economics & Political Science. Her work explores the psycho-social and ethical implications of advances in bioscience and biomedicine for young people and families. She is published in leading scientific, clinical, bioethics and social science journals, and her publications on cognitive enhancement have been covered in the national media. Ilina is developing an EU-wide research programme in this area, and is a member of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) Working Group on cognitive enhancement.