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Invitation to the Media - Leading scientists describe their work at Royal Society seminar

July 03, 2002

Leading experts on cloning, the human genome, computer microprocessors, earthquakes and conservation will be describing their work at the Royal Society on 10 and 11 July.

The annual Royal Society New Fellows Seminar will showcase the groundbreaking work carried out by new Fellows and Foreign Members elected this year.

The speakers will include: Professor Stephen Furber, who helped design the world's leading embedded processor core for digital equipment; Professor Nicholas Hastie, who led the team that first demonstrated the tips of human chromosomes shorten with age; Dr Georgina Mace, who devised international standards for identifying plant and animal species that are at greatest risk of extinction, and Professor Ian Wilmut, who led the team that produced Dolly the sheep.

The media are invited to attend these talks and speakers will be available for interviews during the two days. A full programme for the two-day seminar, together with abstracts for each talk, follows:

New Fellows Seminar 2002 (10-11 July 2002)

Wednesday 10 July 2002

08.30: Coffee

09.00: Welcome by Stephen Cox CVO, Executive Secretary, The Royal Society

09.05: Introduction by Sir Eric Ash CBE, Treasurer, The Royal Society

Session 1        Chair: Sir Eric Ash

09.15: Professor Terence Lyons, Wallis Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford
Controlling the uncontrollable - filtering the unfilterable - pure mathematics meets engineering: What does the human perception of stereo sound have to do with rolling a sphere across a table? What is the connection between a spell checker on your computer and putting a man on the moon? In both examples there are common mathematical ideas underpinning our understanding. Find out more in a superficial introduction to modern Stochastic Analysis.

09.30: Professor Bruce Kemp, Deputy Director, St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, Fitzroy, Australia
AMP activated protein kinase: the well being enzyme mediating the health benefits of diet and exercise: The AMP activated protein kinase (AMPK) is an important regulator of energy metabolism in response to energy demand (exercise) and energy supply (caloric intake). When activated AMPK acutely controls metabolism to provide ATP but also changes gene transcription to adapt the body to the new circumstances of energy demand or supply.

09.45: Dr Terence Quinn, Director, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Se'vres, France
Why we rely increasingly on accurate and reliable measurements linked to the fundamental constants of nature: Accurate and reliable measurements are needed in almost every aspect of life: in the manufacture and operation of high-technology products, in buying and selling of a vast range of products, in telecommunications and navigation, in medical diagnosis and therapy, in food and agriculture, in the protection of the environment, in global climate studies and, last but not least, in the basic science upon which all of the rest depends.

10.00: Professor Allan Bradley, Director, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge
Beyond the Human Genome: The reference human genomic DNA sequence has an inventory of greater than 30,000 genes. Currently the function of most genes is unknown. While the sequence may suggest a biochemical activity, this is usually insufficient to predict a physiological role. By generating mutations in mice we are attempting to attribute function to every gene in the genome.

10.15: Professor Jean-Pierre Hansen, Professor of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Liquids: from disorder to complexity: The disordered microscopic organization of ordinary liquids, follows from a subtle balance between energy and entropy. Entropy does, however induce highly ordered, "self-assembled" structures in complex fluids, which require coarse-grained statistical descriptions, whereby macromolecules or colloids interact via turnable "entropic" forces. This strategy will be illustrated by two examples: segregation and ordering in colloidal dispersions, and the permeation of ions channels by water molecules and ions.

10.30: Professor Stuart Cull-Candy, Professor of Pharmacology, University College London
Glutamate receptor subunits underlying transmission between brain cells: Glutamate receptors underlie fast excitatory transmission at many synapses in the brain. The presynaptic release of neurotransmitter (glutamate) produces a brief chemical signal that is converted into an electrical event when glutamate molecules bind to receptors and open ion channels in the postsynaptic cell. We are interested in understanding the molecular events associated with the operation of these receptor-channels, and how the channel properties allow this important transmitter to generate a wide variety of signal in different brain cells.

10.45: Coffee

Session 2        Chair: Professor John Enderby CBE, Physical Secretary, The Royal Society

11.15: Professor Graham Goodwin, Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Newcastle, Australia
Feedback Control theory opens the door to industrial gains: Feedback Control theory has been one of the success stories of Applied Mathematics in the twentieth century. This talk will use practical examples to illustrate some of the contributions that I and co-workers have made to this area and to show how control techniques underpin the operation of many familiar real world systems.

11.30: Dr Georgina Mace OBE, Director of Science, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London
Assessing extinction threats to species: processes and consequences: Species are the most common unit for assessing biodiversity, and extinction is the most obvious evidence of deterioration. Yet observing extinction, and obtaining unbiased estimates of current extinction rates, is deceptively hard. New methods for estimating risks to extant species reveal much about the relative nature and scale of threats to species, and are now being developed for measuring biodiversity status.

11.45: Professor Claude Allegre, Professor (Sciences de la Terre), University of Paris, France
How to determine the chemical composition of the Earth: The Earth is a strongly differentiated body. Most of its structure is not directly accessible (the Earth has a radius of 6,400 km while the most important drill hole is 12 km deep!). To determine the chemical composition of the Earth we have to use 1) geophysical measurements 2) cosmic information 3) terrestrial information. Geodynamics has shown that continental crust has developed at the expense of the upper mantle. Using the conservative properties of radiogenic isotopic ratios as well as some trace element ratios we can solve a global budget equation, by a huge inverse problem.

12.00: Professor Robin Carrell, Professor of Haematology, University of Cambridge
Mad cows and Englishmen: The common dementias, including the human form of mad cow disease, result from a change in shape and interlinking of brain-specific proteins. Recent findings show in molecular detail how such changes can occur and provide a model for the design of specific therapies. Will treatment be ready to meet a UK epidemic?

12. 15: Dr Mary Rees, Reader in Mathematics, University of Liverpool
The best path to take: Shortest paths- geodesics - are important in many areas of mathematics. I want to talk about some work on geodesics in a certain space which I developed as part of one project, in dynamics, and then used in some work on automatic groups, and have hopes of using in a problem in hyperbolic geometry.

12.30: Professor David Lilley, Professor of Molecular Biology, University of Dundee
Structure and folding of branched nucleic acids: Nucleic acids provide the molecular nuts and bolts of genetics. DNA is the repository of information, while RNA is the `working substance`. I am fascinated by the structures of these molecules, and by helical branchpoints in particular. In DNA these act as critical intermediates in processes by which damage is repaired. These structures bind particular proteins in a special way. In RNA, branchpoints act as important architectural features. I am particularly interested in RNA molecules that act like enzymes. These may be `molecular fossils` of RNA-based life from which everything evolved 2 billion years ago. Understanding the origins of RNA catalysis is a major challenge in biological chemistry.

12.45: Lunch

Session 3        Chair: Sir John Rowlinson, Past Physical Secretary

13.45: Professor John Sambles, Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Exeter
Shedding light on the optical world of liquid-crystals: Cast to one side your concepts of solids and liquids to consider the world that lies between them; liquid-crystals. These materials flow as liquids but are elastic, like solids; properties that have resulted in our slim-screen televisions and mobile phone displays. New experiments reveal in detail the optical behaviour of these remarkable materials.

14.00: Professor Nicholas Hastie, Director, Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh
The Wilms` tumour suppressor, WT1 - a link between cancer and development: Paediatric cancers such as Wilms` tumour of the kidney have long fascinated scientists as they arise through disruption of normal developmental processes. Mutations in the Wilms` tumour suppressor gene, WT1, may lead to childhood cancer, other kidney diseases and sex reversal. Using new approaches we have shown that WT1 plays pivotal roles in genitourinary development. Furthermore, WT1 encodes two proteins that may link the fundamental processes of RNA transcription and processing.

14.15: Professor David Dolphin, Professor of Chemistry, University of British Columbia; Vice President, Technology Development, Quadra Logic Technologies, Vancouver, Canada
Photodynamic therapy: In the presence of visible light porphyrins become very toxic. We have designed porphyrins that accumulate in rapidly dividing tissue, such as neovascularization (new blood vessels). We have carried out clinical trials and our drug has been approved in 62 countries to treat a disease of the eye known as age related macular degeneration.

14.30: Professor Brian Moore, Professor of Auditory Perception, University of Cambridge
A model of loudness perception and its applications: Loudness is a subjective attribute of sounds that is related in a complex way to their physical characteristics. We have developed a model for predicting the loudness of any sound, as perceived by normally hearing and hearing-impaired people. This model has found widespread application in assessing environmental sounds. It has also been applied to the fitting of hearing aids.

14.45: Professor Eric Priest, Gregory Chair of Mathematics, University of St Andrews
Our dynamic Sun: Spectacular observations by European and American space satellites have recently revealed the surprisingly dynamic nature of our Sun. Great eruptions may sometimes reach the Earth. Also, the outer atmosphere of the Sun is a staggering two million degrees centigrade. The key to understanding these lies in the Sun`s magnetic field.

15.00: Dr Peter Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden, USA
A new flora of China: The plants of China, approximately 30,000 species, are being revised in the course of a major international project that has been underway since 1987, and which is now approximately one-third complete. These plants are of great importance horticulturally, medicinally, ecologically, and as living equivalents of the floras that covered the entire northern hemisphere until worldwide climatic deterioration set in some 15 million years ago. Many are endangered, and a critical, internationally-based evaluation of their status is of fundamental importance for their conservation, sustainable use, and appreciation.

15.15: Tea

Session 4        Chair: Sir Peter Lachmann, Past Biological Secretary

15.45: Professor Carl Wunsch, Cecil & Ida Green professor of Physical Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
The ocean circulation in present and past climates: Scenarios used to depict the role of the ocean in past and future climate change are not consistent with progress in the last decade toward understanding the real physical system. I will explore the gap between the climate stories being told about the ocean circulation, and the probable reality.

16.00: Professor Ian Wilmut OBE, Director, Department of Gene Expression and Development, Roslin, Midlothian
The significance of Dolly the sheep: The birth of Dolly was one recent demonstration that the mechanisms that regulate the formation of the different tissues of an adult from an embryo can be reversed. Research to understand the mechanisms of the reversal will provide important new knowledge and create revolutionary means to treat human degenerative diseases.

16.15: Professor Miles Reid, Professor of Mathematics, University of Warwick
Classification of varieties: the great trichotomy: The classification of algebraic varieties in higher dimensions is based on a division into three cases that permeates many areas of geometry. The talk treats this trichotomy in its historical context, and describes briefly some of the key ideas involving singularities that appear in higher dimensional geometry.

16.30: Professor Anne Dell, Professor of Carbohydrate Biochemistry, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
Communicating with sugars: Every cell in our body is coated with a sugar-rich layer called the glycocalyx. Acting as "identity tags", sugars help to control the social and anti-social behaviour of cells. This talk will focus on how mass spectrometry can help solve mysteries involving sugar-recognition such as how parasites escape host immune surveillance, why the foetus is not rejected by its mother, and why sperm are not normally attacked by women`s immune systems.

16.45: Professor Mark Welland, Professor of Nanotechnology, University of Cambridge
How small can we make it before it stops working?: The ability to make machines with molecular precision makes for the possibility to shrink all types of device, such as a computer chip, down to molecular dimensions. But at what scale does the physics of nanostructures stop devices working? And what are the opportunities to exploit the unique properties of materials at the nanometre scale?

17.00: Dr Andrew Smith, Band 2, Individual Merit Promotion Scientist, The Natural History Museum, London
Sea-levels, sequence stratigraphy and echinoid diversity through the Cretaceous: The abundance and diversity of marine invertebrates during the Cretaceous can be shown to be strongly correlated to sea-level change. This has profound implications for studies that attempt to document biodiversity through time, since biases in the sedimentary record may be driving patterns in the fossil record.

17.15: Drinks - Marble Hall and Fellows' Room

Thursday 11 July 2002

09.00: Coffee

Session 5        Chair: Sir Brian Heap CBE, Past Foreign Secretary

09.30: Professor David Parker, Professor of Chemistry, University of Durham
Excitement in f block: metal complexes in action: Well defined complexes of the lanthanide or rare earth metal ions offer new opportunities in science, for sensor applications and in clinical diagnosis and therapy. Examples including antibody targeted conjugates, smart contrast agents for MRI and new luminescent probes for bioactive species will be outlined.

09.45: Professor Nicholas Strausfeld, Professor of Entomology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona at Tucson, USA
Small but powerful: insect brains: At their most elaborate, insect brains suggest organization similar to that of mammalian brains. However, instead of millions of nerve cells, some thousands of neurons, often exotically shaped, provide cortex-like visual areas, olfactory lobes, hippocampus-like structures supporting associative and place memory, and cerebellum-like centres involved in the orchestration of movements.

10.00: Professor Stephen Furber, Professor of Computer Engineering, University of Manchester
Computing without clocks: Present-day computers are regulated by `clocks`: signals that define the operating frequencies of all system functions. It is entirely possible, however, to discard the clock and to devolve control, giving a design methodology that improves power consumption, radio interference, security and reusability, overcoming some of the difficulties that current methods will soon face in designing billion transistor systems-on-chip.

10.15: Professor David Fowler, Head of Section, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Edinburgh
Land-atmosphere exchange of trace gases and particles: The surface-atmosphere exchange of gases and particles lies at the heart of global biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen and other elements of life on earth. These processes control the exposure of plants to pollutants and regulate their atmospheric lifetime and travel distance. The lecture will outline the underlying processes and application to environmental issues.

10.30: Professor Christopher Hawkesworth, Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
The time scales of events from melting to volcanic eruptions: Testable models need information on the time scales of natural processes, and these are now becoming available for the history of magmas leading up to volcanic eruptions. Magmas may reside in the crust from 200,000 years to perhaps a few weeks which strongly influences hazard monitoring strategies.

10.45: Coffee

Session 6        Chair: Professor Patrick Bateson, Biological Secretary

11.15: Professor Peter Ratcliffe, Professor of Renal Medicine, University of Oxford
Epo to oxygen: cellular signalling of hypoxia: The regulation of blood red cell production by the hormone erythropoietin (Epo) provides a paradigm for control of gene expression by oxygen. Analysis of this pathway has revealed a widespread system of gene regulation that is activated in development, ischaemic/hypoxia disease and cancer. Hydroxylation of relevant transcription factors by a series of non-haem iron-dependent dioxygenases has been defined as a novel mechanism of protein modification that transduces the oxygen sensitive signal.

11.30: Professor Anthony Stace, Professor of Chemistry, School of Molecular Sciences, University of Sussex
Clusters: chemistry and physics in a finite world: Finite collections of atoms and molecules (clusters) can be used to examine the relationship between the size of a substance and its properties. For example, we might wish to how many copper atoms it takes to construct an electrical conductor, or how many water molecules are needed to dissolve sodium chloride.

11.45: Professor Dr Roger Davis, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Massachusetts, USA
The genetic response to stress in health and disease: We are exposed to multiple sources of stress. Survival requires that we mount an appropriate physiological response, which is genetically programmed within the cells that form the body. Defects in this genetic response contribute to the progression of multiple diseases, including arthritis, cancer, heart disease and stroke. The identification of relevant genes provides an opportunity for therapeutic intervention for these diseases.

12.00: Professor Thomas Rice, Professor of Physics, Eidgenössische Technische Höchschule, Zurich, Switzerland
The search for unconventional superconductivity: a long story with a happy ending: Shortly after the mystery of superconductivity was explained in 1956,the possibility of other forms of superconductivity existing at higher temperatures was raised. After many fruitless searches novel superconductors were found in the eighties. But it required a new class of experiments to establish that these new superconductors were fundamentally distinct.

12.15: Professor Philip Ingham, Professor of Developmental Genetics, University of Sheffield
Hedgehogs, zebrafish and muscle fibre type: Understanding how multipotential cells are programmed to give rise to highly specialised cell types is a fundamental goal of developmental biology and one that assumes a new significance with the advent of stem cell technologies. My research focuses on the roles of Hedgehog family proteins in this process, with particular reference to the specification of different muscle fibre types in the embryo of the tropical fish Danio rerio.

12.30: Lunch

Session 7        Chair: Sir Andrew Huxley OM, Past President

13.45: Professor Judith Howard (née Duckworth) CBE, Professor of Chemistry, University of Durham
Low temperature crystallography - its impact from chemistry to biology: The use of low temperatures in X-ray and Neutron diffraction experiments has become commonplace in chemical and materials crystallography and cryofreezing has revolutionised macromolecular research in becoming a 'routine' technique. The technological advances making this possible, the further innovative developments made in Durham with recent examples from our work will be discussed.

1400: Professor Per Andersen, Professor of Neurophysiology, University of Oslo, Norway
Molecules and memory: a cellular model of learning in hippocampal synapses: With the hippocampus in the temporal lobe, we store new and complex information. Long-term potentiation (LTP), a use-dependent and durable enhancement of hippocampal synapses, may convey such learning. Studying mice with alteration of genes coding for glutamate-binding receptors, we have identified certain protein molecules which are essential for LTP expression.

14.15: Professor John McCanny CBE, Professor of Microelectronics, The Queens University Belfast
Silicon architectures for digital signal processing (DSP): An overview will be given of research on novel silicon architectures that led to important advances in the design of DSP based integrated circuits. These include computer arithmetic techniques in which computations are performed most significant bit first. Architecture trends for the new era of System-on-a-Chip will also be considered.

14.30: Professor Michael Crawley, Professor of Plant Ecology, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
Herbivores and plant population dynamics: Plants introduced into foreign lands without their herbivores provide an excellent test of the importance of herbivores in determining the distribution and abundance of plants. Studies of alien plants and their herbivores bear on the debate about the environmental risks of GM crops.

14.45: Professor David Rhind CBE, Vice Chancellor, City University, London
Maps, science and people: Computers have transformed mapping. Britain is the first country to have a national topographic database, now used for topics from vehicle guidance to environmental modelling, allocating CAP funding and targeting business customers - and much else. This talk covers the science and technology involved and the scientific and policy tensions between free and `charged` for use of this geographical information.

15.00: Professor John Dainton, Professor of Physics, University of Liverpool
Enga(u)ging matter: Our understanding of matter in the Universe is based on the interactions of quarks and gluons. How these curious quanta interact is thus is a pivotal challenge to contemporary physics. This challenge is being met by a judicious symbiosis of experiment and theory, which is outlined in a heuristic manner.

15.15: Tea

Session 8        Chair: Sir Aaron Klug OM, Past President

15.45: Professor Martyn Poliakoff, Professor of Chemistry, University of Nottingham
Putting the fizz into chemistry: This talk will describe some of the chemical applications of supercritical fluids (SCFs). SCFs are gases, such as CO2 or H2O, compressed until they are nearly as dense as liquids. They have fascinating properties and can dissolve a wide range of compounds. But unlike conventional solvents, dissolved compounds can be precipitated merely by releasing the pressure.

16.00: Dr John Kilmartin, Scientific Staff, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
Duplication of the spindle pole: When cells divide during mitosis the chromosomes have to be partitioned equally between the two cells. The organelle responsible for this, the mitotic spindle, is organised in part from the two spindle poles. Prior to mitosis all cells have one spindle pole which has to be duplicated before spindle formation, the mechanism of this duplication will be described.

16.15: Dr James Jackson, Reader, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
Living with earthquakes: know your faults: Modern technology reveals details of the faulting in earthquakes so well that we can also see how repeated earthquakes create the local landscape. That landscape preserves rich signals telling us how faults evolve with time, revealing surprising links between earthquake hazards and the local way of life.

16.30: Dr David Ish-Horowicz, Principal Research Scientist, Cancer Research UK, London
Clocks and motors in embryos: Animal development depends on the spatial organisation of diverse, specialised cell-types. I shall describe two processes that contribute to moulding the architecture of the embryo: molecular motors that transport RNA signals within a cell; the "segmentation clock", a molecular oscillator that generates repeated segments as the embryo grows.

16.45: Closing remarks by Sir Eric Ash CBE, Treasurer

16.50: Close

18.30: Drinks - City of London Rooms

19.00: Dinner including recital - Dining Room

22.00: Carriages

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