Thursday 9 December 2004 at 6pm

Why Clone? Cloning in Biology and Medicine

Professor Ian Wilmut OBE FRS FRSE, Principal Investigator, BBSRC, Roslin Institute

There is much confusion when people see the words ‘clone’ and ‘cloning’. Cloning (also known as nuclear transfer) involves the transfer of the genetic information from a cell to an unfertilised egg, from which the genetic information has been removed. The cloning technique involves several complex steps and is carried out by specialists in the laboratory. In 1996, ‘Dolly the Sheep’ was created, the first animal cloned from a cell taken from an adult mammal. Offspring have been produced in several species, sheep, cow, mouse, pig, goat, cat, rat, rabbit and horse. However, despite considerable effort by experienced laboratories, no offspring have been reported from the rhesus monkey or dog.  There are many limitations to this technology, but also many potential applications, for example, copying our most productive farm animals, producing organs for transplantation or treating conditions such as spinal cord injury.

Wednesday 8 December 2004 at 6pm

Discussion Forum - HIV and AIDS: Beyond the 1980s

Dr Gordon Scott, Department of Genito-Urinary Medicine, Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh

Mr Neil Gerrard MP, Chair, All Parliamentary Group on AIDS

Professor David Hamblen, Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
Professor Hamish Simpson, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Edinburgh, Professor Joe McGeough FRSE, Regius Professor of Engineering, University of Edinburgh

Thursday 25 November 2004 

Joint Conference with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences - Current Research in Mathematical Biology

at the Kelvin Gallery and Hunterian Museum, Gilmorehill Campus, University of Glasgow

Over the past twenty-five years Mathematical Biology has become an increasingly important research area. It is a wide reaching subject which has seen success in many practical and applicable problems, from helping to determine government policy on conservation and infectious disease control issues to investigating the mechanisms by which tumours grow or wounds heal. This one-day conference brought together experts in several different areas of mathematical biology to present talks and to hold open discussions on what has been achieved to date and what we would like to achieve in the future.

Monday 8 November 2004 at 5.30pm

Lecture - Osteoporosis: African Genesis - European Nemesis

Professor David Purdie, Consultant, Edinburgh Osteoporosis Centre

Osteoporosis - or brittle bone disease - is now a major public health problem in the UK, affecting one in three women and one in twelve men over the age of 50. The tracking of its origins through clinical medicine, genetics and anthropology remains one of the most fruitful collaborations in contemporary science. This lecture followed the trail from Africa to Edinburgh – confronting a disease which robs people of stature, self-esteem and life itself.

CRF International Conference - Reproductive Health

Patterns of reproduction have a major influence on the health and prevalence of disease. Advances in medical knowledge, availability of treatment services and shifting behavioural and social attitudes all combine to influence reproductive health. Developing countries typically have a high total fertility rate associated with very high maternal and infant mortality. In the majority of developed countries, such as those in Europe, the fertility rate is below replacement and is associated with high contraceptive prevalence and delay in the birth of the first child. Cancers of the reproductive system, such as breast, endometrium and prostate, are relatively common and the incidence of subfertility increases. Contraceptive technologies can influence the pattern of disease and there is the potential to provide significant health benefits. This conference discussed consequences of this demographic change on reproductive health.

Click here for report (PDF File)

Monday 4 October at 5.30pm

Henry Duncan Prize Lecture - Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art

Professor Duncan MacMillan, Curator of the Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh

The Scottish Enlightenment is the source of some of the most important ideas that have shaped the modern world, but the origins of modern art are not often looked for there. In fact David Hume and Thomas Reid were responsible for some of the key thinking which later shaped modern art and Scottish artists were also among the first to explore them. Ranging over art from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, this lecture sets the achievement of Scottish artists in the wider frame of European art and the evolution of modernism.

Click here to read transcript of lecture (PDF File)

Thursday 30 September 2004

Full Day Conference - Scotland’s Land

The countryside is undergoing a period of exceptional change that will alter forever the landscape and rural economy of Scotland. A wealth of new legislation is either planned or being implemented. Measures include: Access Code, National Parks, Agricultural Holdings Act, CAP Reform, Conservation Bill and a possible Planning Bill. Legislation may fulfil social, political and conservation objectives but, arguably, may not be able to deliver in economic terms. Increasing, competing demands are being placed on the land and those who work the land with no obvious solutions. Conservation, tourism & recreation, farming & forestry, academia & business speakers will examine the issues, highlight useful case studies, suggest relevant solutions and examine what opportunities change will bring.

Monday 27 September 2004 at 6pm 

Discussion Forum - Preserving the Values of Secular Europe in a Time of Religious Turbulence

Dr A C Grayling, Reader in Philosophy, Birkbeck College, London and Professor John J Haldane FRSE, Professor of Philosophy, University of St Andrews

Professor Haldane The question of how to preserve the values of secular Europe in a time of religious turbulence has as its counterpart that of how to preserve the values of religious Europe in a time of secularisation. Is there an opposition between humanist and religious ideals or do they share common values? Is traditional humanism a fruit of Europe’s Judaeo-Christian foundation, which cannot survive, let alone flourish, when severed from it?  Dr Grayling The values characteristic of the West’s liberal democracies were hard won in the five centuries following the Reformation.  Understanding the threats they face is the first step to protecting them.

Monday 6 September 2004 at 5.30pm.  

Bruce Preller Prize Lecture - The Threat of Terrorism: The Place of Science

Professor Sir Keith O’Nions FRS, Director General of Research Councils, Office of Science and Technology

Rapid advances in science and technology are increasingly available globally with great social and economic benefits. However, in the wrong hands they emerge as threats to society of a form we have not previously had to counter. This poses the immediate difficulty of balancing the benefits and disbenefits of regulating the flow of technology and know-how around the world. There is an ongoing need to identify threats posed by new advances such as in biotechnology and nanotechnology. But our response to these and existing know-how must cover the much broader domain of intelligence, diplomacy, military and civil contingency.

Click here to read Sir Keith's Lecture

Wednesday 23 June 2004.  2pm at Bonar Hall, University of Dundee 

SABRI Lecture - Biotechnology, Organic Farming and Shaping our Agricultural Future

Professor Monkombu S. Swaminathan FRS, UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology and President, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

Global agriculture faces formidable challenges. Countries like India, China and Bangladesh must increase production under conditions of diminishing arable land, water resources, climate change and expanding stresses. Research on such issues must therefore be intensified. The development strategies adopted by the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation were described in this lecture. To achieve an ever-green revolution which will enhance farm productivity without ecological harm, molecular breeding and organic farming will need to be integrated. GM foods and organic foods should not be pitched one against the other.

Wednesday 16 June 2004 

Conference - Scottish Publishing

The theme of this conference was how best to develop and take forward the Scottish Publishing Industry. The objective was to discuss the most appropriate ways to implement the recommendations of the recently completed independent review of the Needs of Scottish Publishing in the 21st Century by consultants PriceWaterhouseCooper and Napier University, commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council.  Key issues  explored, from the perspectives of publishers, support agencies and writers, included the problems and opportunities facing publishing in Scotland, other countries as possible models and reflecting cultural diversity.

Monday 14 June 2004 at 5.30pm
Lecture - From Entente to Alliance: The Anglo-French Relationship One Hundred Years On

Professor Hew Strachan FRSE, Chichele Professor of History of War and Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford

This year sees the centenary of the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France. But the deal which they struck after centuries of enmity had no obligations and little definition. It required the First World War to make them true allies, and it was the Second World War which most nearly broke the relationship. Photograph (Negative No Q 5100 )courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, London. Not to be copied without the permission of the IWM.

Click here to read Professor Strachan's summary

Thursday 3 June 2004 at 5.30pm
Lecture - The Coming Century : Ten Trends To Back
Miss Frances Cairncross CBE FRSE, Management Editor, The Economist

Prediction is dangerous, especially about the future, but in this lecture Frances Cairncross picked out ten trends that she believes will dominate the coming century, including examples from demography, economy, technology and global politics. This will, for instance, be the first century in recorded time when human numbers shrink; and may see life expectancy at birth rise in some countries to almost 100 years.

Click here to read summary of The Coming Century : Ten Trends to Back

Tuesday 1 June 2004 at 6pm 
Discussion Forum - The Reliability of Fingerprint Identification

Mr Bruce Grant, Head of the Fingerprint Bureau, New Scotland Yard; Professor James Starrs, Law and Forensic Sciences, The George Washington University, Washington DC and Dr James Thorpe, Director, Forensic Unit, The University of Strathclyde. In recent months the reliability as well as the faith behind the science of fingerprint identification has come under some scrutiny. This discussion forum aimed to examine the robustness of fingerprinting in the 21st Century. Should we rely on the evidence that fingerprinting provides?

Monday 24 May 2004 at 5.30pm at RSE

Wednesday 26 May 2004 at 4pm at University of Dundee

CRF Prize Lecture - Pre-mRNA Splicing: the Tie that Binds
by Professor Joan Steitz, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University.  

Premessenger RNA (pre-mRNA) splicing is an essential step in gene expression in higher cells. The removal of introns from gene transcripts is orchestrated by the spliceosome, an RNA-based machine that contains five essential RNA-protein complexes called snRNPs, as well as many protein factors. The history of snRNPs was followed by a discussion of some of the major surprises concerning the nature of the spliceosomes and introns recently uncovered. Current challenges, such as how splicing is linked on the molecular level to other steps in gene expression, were also discussed.

Click here to read a transcript of the lecture

Monday 10 May 2004 at 5.30pm

Public Lecture  - Broadband Access Technologies: Reality and Myth.

Professor Stephen McLaughlin, University of Edinburgh.   Supported by Edinburgh Technopole

As the demand for multimedia services grows, so also does the demand for greater and greater bandwidth to service this. This places an increasing load on the access infrastructure and has led to a proliferation of access technologies. Steve McLaughlin explored the technological and economic factors influencing the development and deployment of access technologies on offer. He discussed the reality of broadband access compared to the myth, focusing on the key access technologies: Broadband Fixed Wireless Access and Digital Subscriber Line.

Monday 26 April 2004 at 5pm

Robert Cormack Bequest Lecture - Focussing in the Sky
Professor Sir Michael Berry FRS, University of Bristol. 

Light rays and waves are bent and concentrated by water, air and gravity. When interpreted using modern geometry, this ancient physics explains an enormous range of natural phenomena: from the sparkling of the sea to the lensing of distant astronomical objects, via rainbows, glories and the eclipsed moon. This public lecture followed a day-long workshop for specialist and budding astronomers. Click here to read Sir Michael's lecture

Wednesday 21 April 2004

The conference examined our current knowledge of the interaction between fire and structures. The dramatic events in New York on September 11 2001 drew attention to the need for structural engineers to approach fire safety design in a new and more fundamental way. The issues surrounding this were explored, and our current understanding of building fires and how the structural engineer can use this knowledge as part of the structural design process reviewed. Following the conference, there was a lecture summarising the findings of the investigation into the structural collapses at the World Trade Center.

Click here to read conference report (PDF 1MB)