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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 | |
| Life peerage 18 December 1995 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Maurice Lipson Winston (1940-07-15)15 July 1940 (age 85) London, England |
| Party | Labour |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingBen Winston |
| Alma mater | London Hospital Medical College |
| Occupation |
|
| 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 inLondon 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.[2]
Winston attended firstlySalcombe Preparatory School until the age of seven, followed byColet Court andSt Paul's School, later graduating from theLondon Hospital Medical College in 1964 with a degree in medicine and surgery. He achieved prominence as an expert in humanfertility. 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]
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Winston joinedHammersmith Hospital in the capacity ofregistrar in 1970 as aWellcome Research Fellow. He became an associate professor at theCatholic University of Leuven, Belgium, in 1975. Between 1975 and 1977, he was a scientific advisor to theWorld Health Organization's programme in human reproduction, after which he joined theRoyal Postgraduate Medical School (based at Hammersmith Hospital) as a consultant andreader in 1977.
After conducting research as a professor ofgynaecology 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, becoming Dean of the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology until its merger withImperial College in 1997. He was the director of NHS Research and Development at the Hammersmith Hospitals Trust until 1994. As a 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, a technology that 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.
Winston was the president of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science from 2004 to 2005. Together with Carol Readhead of theCalifornia Institute of Technology, he 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]
Winston 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, anhonorary fellow[7] of theRoyal Academy of Engineering,[7] a fellow of theRoyal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and of theRoyal College of Physicians of London, and an honorary fellow of theRoyal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, theRoyal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, and theRoyal Society of Biology. He holds honorary doctorates from twenty-three universities,[8] is a trustee of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, and 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 have 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]
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Winston has been 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,The Story of God, and theBAFTA award-winnerThe Human Body.
In 2003, he presented the BBC documentaryWalking with Cavemen, a series that introduced some controversial views about early humans but was endorsed by anthropologists and scientists. One of its theories 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 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 therecorder.[11]
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 on 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 the 2011Symphony of Science episode "Ode to the Brain".
Winston was made alife peer on 18 December 1995 asBaron Winston, ofHammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.[12][13][14] He sits on theLabour Party benches in theHouse of Lords as that party'swhip. He speaks on topics of education, science, medicine, and the arts. He was chairman of the House of LordsSelect Committee on Science and Technology[when?] and is a board member and vice-chairman of theParliamentary Office of Science and Technology, which provides advice to both houses of Parliament.[15]
On 31 July 2025, he was a signatory of a letter from 38 House of Lords members opposing the UK's plan to recognise a state ofPalestine: the peers said Palestine "does not meet the international law criteria for recognition of a state, namely, defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states".[16]
Winston has made a number of claims suggesting that segregated cycle lanes cause greater air pollution and emissions inCentral 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 have three children, includingBen, who is a film and TV producer and director. Feigenbaum died on 9 December 2021.[19] Winston 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 was a council member of theImperial Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research UK, and until 2013, of theEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, where he chaired the Societal Issues Panel.[4] He regularly gives public lectures on scientific subjects and has helped promote science literacy and education by founding the Reach Out Laboratory at Imperial College, which brings schoolchildren of all ages into the university on a daily basis to do practical science and to debate issues that 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 aspirations with students.[citation needed]
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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.)[27] |
| England | 8 September 2003 | University of Salford | Doctorate[28] |
| England | 2004 | Solent University | Doctor of Technology (D.Tech.)[29] |
| England | 2005 | Lancaster University | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[30] |
| England | University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[31] | |
 Scotland | 5 July 2010 | University of Aberdeen | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[32][33] |
| England | 22 July 2011 | Loughborough University | Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)[34] |
| England | 5 September 2014 | Birmingham City University | Doctorate[35][36] |
 Israel | 5 November 2015 | Weizmann Institute of Science | Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)[37] |
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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 |
