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The Lord Winston | |
|---|---|
 Winston in 2017 | |
| Chancellor ofSheffield Hallam University | |
| In office 2001 – 26 July 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Bryan Nicholson |
| Succeeded by | Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 18 December 1995 Life peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Maurice Lipson Winston (1940-07-15)15 July 1940 (age 84) London, England |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingBen Winston |
| Alma mater | London Hospital Medical College |
| Occupation | Surgeon, scientist, television presenter, politician, and peer |
| Signature |  |
| Website | robertwinston |
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston (born 15 July 1940) is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter andLabour peer.
Robert Winston was born in London to Laurence Winston and Ruth Winston-Fox, and brought up as anOrthodox Jew. His mother was Mayor of the former Borough ofSouthgate. Winston's father died as a result of medical negligence when Winston was nine years old. Robert has two younger siblings: a sister, the artist Willow Winston, and a brother, Anthony.[2]
Winston attended firstlySalcombe Preparatory School until the age of 7, followed byColet Court andSt Paul's School, later graduating from TheLondon Hospital Medical College in 1964 with a degree in medicine and surgery and achieved prominence as an expert in human fertility. For a brief time he gave up clinical medicine and worked as a theatre director,[3] winning the National Directors' Award at theEdinburgh Festival in 1969.[4]
Winston joinedHammersmith Hospital as aregistrar in 1970 as aWellcome Research Fellow. He became an associate professor at theCatholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1975. He was a scientific advisor to theWorld Health Organisation's programme in human reproduction from 1975 to 1977. He joined theRoyal Postgraduate Medical School (based at Hammersmith Hospital) as consultant and Reader in 1977.
After conducting research as Professor of Gynaecology at theUniversity of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1980, he returned to the UK to run theIVF service set up at Hammersmith Hospital which pioneered various improvements in this technology. He became Dean of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London until its merger with Imperial College in 1997. He was Director of NHS Research and Development at the Hammersmith Hospitals Trust until 1994. As Professor of Fertility Studies at Hammersmith, Winston led the IVF team that pioneered pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to identify defects in human embryos, and published early work on gene expression in human embryos. He developed tubal microsurgery and various techniques in reproductive surgery, including sterilisation reversal. He performed the world's firstfallopian tubal transplant in 1979 but this technology was later superseded byin vitro fertilisation. Together with Alan Handyside in 1990, his research group pioneered the techniques of pre-implantation diagnosis, enabling screening of human embryos to prevent numerous genetic diseases.
He was the president of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science from 2004 to 2005. Together with Carol Readhead of theCalifornia Institute of Technology, Winston researched male germ cell stem cells and methods for their genetic modification at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology,Imperial College London. He has published over 300 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.[5] He was appointed to a new chair at Imperial College – Professor of Science and Society – and is also emeritus professor of Fertility Studies there. He was Chairman of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Trust and chairs the Women-for-Women Appeal. This charitable trust, which has raised over £80 million for research into reproductive diseases, was renamed the Genesis Research Trust in 1997. From 2001 to 2018 he was Chancellor ofSheffield Hallam University.[6]
Winston is a Fellow of theAcademy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), anHonorary Fellow[7] of theRoyal Academy of Engineering[7] (HonFREng), a Fellow of theRoyal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (FRCOG) and of theRoyal College of Physicians of London (FRCP), and is anHonorary Fellow of theRoyal College of Surgeons (FRCS Edin),Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (FRCPS Glasg), and theRoyal Society of Biology (FRSB). He holds honorary doctorates from twenty-three universities.[8] He is a trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation. He is a patron ofThe Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Winston holds strong views about the commercialisation offertility treatment. He believes that ineffective treatments result in great anguish to couples and is alarmed that so many treatments for the symptom of infertility are carried out before proper investigation and diagnosis has been made. He is also sceptical about the effectiveness of current methods for screening human embryos to assess their viability.[2]
Winston has calledgender-affirming surgery "mutilation" and has said that "we can remove bits of our body and change our shape and so on but you can't change your sex because that is embedded in your genes in every cell of your body."[9]
Winston has said "I think there has to be a clear understanding that science is not the truth. It’s a version of the truth."[10]
Winston was the presenter of manyBBC television series, includingYour Life in Their Hands,Making Babies,Superhuman,The Secret Life of Twins,Child of Our Time,Human Instinct,The Human Mind,Frontiers of Medicine and theBAFTA award-winnerThe Human Body. As a traditionalJew with anorthodox background,[11] he also presentedThe Story of God, exploring the development of religious beliefs and the status of faith in a scientific age.
He presented the BBC documentaryWalking with Cavemen, a major BBC series that presented some controversial views about early man but was endorsed by anthropologists and scientists. One theory was thatHomo sapiens have a uniquely developed imagination that helped them to survive.
Winston's documentaryThreads of Life won the international science film prize in Paris in 2005. His BBC seriesChild Against All Odds explored ethical questions raised by IVF treatment. In 2008, he presentedSuper Doctors, about decisions made every day in frontier medicine.
In 2007, Winston appeared in the TV seriesPlay It Again, in which he attempted to learn to play thesaxophone, despite not having played a musical instrument since the age of 11, when he learned the recorder.[12]
Among manyBBC Radio 4 programmes, he has appeared onThe Archers radio soap as a fertility consultant. He has regularly appeared onThe Wright Stuff as a panellist as well as numerous chat show programmes such asHave I Got News For You,This Morning,The One Show and various political programmes such asQuestion Time andAny Questions. Winston is featured in theSymphony of Science episodeOde to the Brain.
He also took part in the 2011 TV seriesJamie's Dream School. In recent years, Winston has been featured onThe Late Late Show with James Corden in the United States, presenting various entertaining scientific experiments.
Winston was created alife peer on 18 December 1995 asBaron Winston, ofHammersmith in theLondon Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.[13][14][15] He sits on the Labour Party benches in theHouse of Lords and takes the Labourwhip. He speaks frequently in the House of Lords on education, science, medicine and the arts. He was Chairman of the House of LordsSelect Committee on Science and Technology and is a board member and vice-chairman of theParliamentary Office of Science and Technology, which provides advice to both Houses of Parliament.[16] He is a member ofLabour Friends of Israel.[citation needed]
Winston has made a number of claims suggesting that segregated cycle lanes cause greater air pollution and emissions in Central London.[17] He is a member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, an advisory board created in 2019 and sponsored by theDepartment for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which works on ethical and innovative deployment of data-enabled technologies includingartificial intelligence.[18]
In 1973, Winston married Lira Helen Feigenbaum (born 8 August 1949). They had three children, Joel, Tanya andBen who is a film and TV producer and director. Lady Winston died on 9 December 2021.[19] Winston is a fan ofArsenal Football Club.[20] He is a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Arts, a former vice-president of theRoyal College of Music and a member of theGarrick Club, theMCC, and theAthenaeum Club in London.[4] He owns a classic 1930s Bentley.[2]
Winston was a council member of theImperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research UK, and until 2013 was a member of theEngineering & Physical Sciences Research Council where he chaired the Societal Issues Panel.[4] He gives many public lectures a year on scientific subjects and has helped to promote science literacy and education by founding the Reach Out Laboratory inImperial College, which brings schoolchildren of all ages into the university on a daily basis to do practical science and to debate the issues which science and technology raise.[2] Extending this school outreach activity, he acts as ambassador for Outreach for the President of Imperial College, visiting schools across England to discuss scientific issues and career aspiration with students.
Winston has received at least 23honorary degrees, These include
| Location | Date | School | Honorary doctorate |
|---|---|---|---|
 England | 14 July 2003 | University of Sunderland | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[28] |
| England | 8 September 2003 | University of Salford | Doctorate[29] |
| England | 2004 | Solent University | Doctor of Technology (D.Tech.)[30] |
| England | 2005 | Lancaster University | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[31] |
| England | University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[32] | |
 Scotland | 5 July 2010 | University of Aberdeen | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[33][34] |
| England | 22 July 2011 | Loughborough University | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[35] |
| England | 5 September 2014 | Birmingham City University | Doctorate[36][37] |
 Israel | 5 November 2015 | Weizmann Institute of Science | Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)[38] |
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| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Bryan Nicholson | Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University 2001-2018 | Succeeded by |
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Winston | Followed by |
