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Pallab Kumar Ghosh (born 1962) is a sciencecorrespondent forBBC News.
Born in India, he came to the United Kingdom in 1963, attended theHemel Hempstead School,[1][2] and studied physics atImperial College, London between 1980 and 1983 where he was subsequently [1983-4] the editor of the student journalFelix.
He has been a sciencejournalist since 1984. He won the Media Natura Environment Award[citation needed],BT's Technology Journalist of the Year and The Press Gazette's Science Journalist of the Year.
He has interviewed notable figures including the first man on the moon,Neil Armstrong; the creator of the World Wide Web,Tim Berners Lee; and cosmologistStephen Hawking. Ghosh has covered subjects including thehuman genome project,cloning,stem cell research andgenetically modified (GM) crops.
He began his career in the British electronics and computer press before joiningNew Scientist as the magazine's science news editor. Ghosh joinedBBC News in 1989. He worked as a general news producer onBBC Radio 4'sThe World at One and then went on to become a senior producer on theToday Programme.
As science correspondent, Ghosh has broken several important stories, notably the clonedDolly the sheep havingarthritis, and the abandonment of the construction of a primate research centre byCambridge University because of fears of attacks fromanimal rights activists.
In 1993 Ghosh reported that the Science Board of theBritish Medical Association (BMA) was reviewing the organisation's precautionary approach to GM crops and food.[3] There was particular concern that theZambian Government had cited the BMA's advice, that health risks could not be ruled out, as part of the reason it had turned away much needed grain shipments during a food shortage.[4] The BMA issued a press release the same day quoting its spokesperson Vivienne Nathanson, which stated that the BBC report was "wrong" and "totally incorrect."[citation needed] The following year The BMA admitted it had indeed reviewed its stance on GM crops, and decided that new research suggested that GM crops posed no health risk.[5]
Ghosh was formerly President of the World Federation of Science Journalists, and is a past chairman of theAssociation of British Science Writers. In these roles he has attempted to promote a more direct approach to science journalism, with the introduction of national and international prizes forinvestigative journalism.
Ghosh has also introduced schemes to get people from more diverse backgrounds into the higher levels of science journalism. He believes that those reporting on scientific issues that increasingly have a social dimension should be more representative of their community.
