Steven P. R. Rose & Hilary Rose
Following a degree in biochemistry at Cambridge, a PhD in neurochemistry in London and post doc periods in Oxford Rome and London, Steven Rose was appointed Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University, where he is now Emeritus Professor.
He is also Visiting Professor at University College London.
His research centres on the neurobiology of learning and memory, about which he has published more than 300 papers and reviews.
Throughout his career he has also been actively concerned with the ethical legal and social implications of developments in science, especially genetics and neuroscience.
Hilary Rose and he are currently working on a new book about the Promethean promises of genomics and neuroscience.
Hilary Rose studied sociology at the London School of Economics where she was then appointed to a lectureship.
At forty she was elected to a Chair at Bradford University where she initiated a postgraduate course in Women's Studies.
She is an Emerita Professor at Bradford and Gresham College and currently a visiting professor of sociology at the LSE.
Her research, as both a socialist and a feminist, has focused on the sociology of social movements and the sociology of science.
In 1967 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Uppsala in Sweden. She was also named by the Portuguese ministry of culture as one of the most influential feminists of the 20th century.
She has published over a hundred academic papers and with Steven Rose has co-authored and co-edited three books.
Note: photograph by Maggie Murray in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
23 September / FROM STATE TO CONSUMER EUGENICS
Genomics has transformed the state eugenics of much of the 20th century disconcertingly supported by prominent intellectuals from the left as well as the right.
Then geneticists gave this project their full support. In the 21st century we are confronted by the moral agony around "saviour siblings" and the revulsion/ enthusiasm over the prospect of perfect designer babies made possible by the new genetics.
EVER SINCE DARWIN
Current conflicts in evolutionary theory and their interactions with shifting concepts of "human nature".
Historians have criticised Darwin's racist, sexist and class bound assumptions but only in the 20th century have feminist biologists, above all Hrdy, sought to replace the profound androcentricity of evolutionary theory.
Alas, contemporary neo-Darwinians and evolutionary psychologists have sought to turn the clock back to Victorian time. We will challenge the arguments of the latter and worry about the feminist project of Hrdy.
On this occasion, Fabio Belloni will present artist Sonia Squillaci's work "Broderies".
D I S C U S S A N T S
Giorgio Bignami was born in 1933, and earned his degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Rome in 1957.
He subsequently trained in general pharmacology under Daniel Bovet at the Iss (Istituto Superiore di Sanità), in endocrinology under Robert Courrier at Paris' Collège de France, and in comparative psychology and endocrinology under Frank A. Beach at the University of California, Berkeley.
Later he directed the Organ and system physiopathology laboratory at the Iss.
His research has focused on psychobiology, comparative psychology, and behavioural psychopharmacology and toxicology, with over one hundred publications, mostly in international specialised journals.
Since 2009 he has been member of the board of directors of the Fondazione Franca e Franco Basaglia, and in January 2010 he was appointed president of the Associazione Forum Droghe.
Patrick Bateson was Professor of Ethology at the University of Cambridge (1984-2005) and Provost (Head) of King's College, Cambridge (1988-2003).
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1983 and was its Biological Secretary and Vice-President from 1998 to 2003.
He was knighted in 2003, and in 2004 was elected President of the Zoological Society of London. Bateson chaired the organizing committee for the Darwin 2009 Festival.
His research is on the behavioural development of animals, and much of his scientific career has been concerned with bridging the gap between the studies of behaviour and those of underlying mechanisms, focusing on the process of imprinting in birds.