Professor Philip Ingham, Head of the Department of Life Sciences, is delighted to invite you to attend a lecture by the Nobel Prize Laureate, Prof. Dr. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard on 9 May 2024 at 15.15 in the East Building 1.1. All staff and students are invited to engage in conversation with Prof. Dr. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard during the reception afterwards in the East Building foyer.

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is a geneticist who studies the mechanisms of animal development. Much of her research over the past 25 years has focussed on the zebrafish, but she is perhaps best known for her studies of embryonic development in the fruit fly Drosophila, for which she was a joint recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

In her talk titled “Animal Beauty: Function and Evolution of Biological Aesthetics”, she will discuss her studies of zebrafish pigmentation mutants and the insights these provide into the genetic and developmental basis of colour pattern evolution in vertebrates. She will also describe how recent exciting technical developments, especially the novel possibilities of genome editing offered by the CRISPR/Cas9 system, allow translation of findings from model organisms into other species by targeted gene knock outs and allele replacements.

This is the third lecture in the Faculty of Science Bath Nobel Laureate Lecture Series, designed to inspire and enthuse a new generation of researchers and share incredible stories across the field.

Professor Duncan Craig, Dean of the Faculty of Science, noted: "We are looking forward to welcoming Professor Nüsslein-Volhard to the University and hearing her presentation. I would encourage all staff and students, irrespective of research area, to come along and hear and meet her. It will be an inspiration to all of us to meet a scientist of this calibre and I very much hope in particular to see many of our postgraduates and early career researchers there to take this opportunity to listen to and meet such an outstanding researcher and superb role model for women in science.”

This event is free, but booking is essential.