The 2002 Nobel Laureate for medicine, Dr John Sulston visits Dublin later this month to receive an award for his work in genetics and to give a public lecture.
Sulston, of Cambridge University and the Sanger Centre, won the Nobel Prize for his analysis of the way an animal develops from a fertilised egg to an adult. In the course of this work, he identified different lines of stem cells, and discovered how some cells in the developing animal are genetically programmed to die.
He comes to Dublin at the invitation of Trinity College Dublin and its Smurfit Institute of Genetics to receive the Dawson Prize in Genetics. The prize was set up by a gift from George Dawson who founded the department of genetics, now the Smurfit Institute, in 1958. He will also deliver a public lecture called Genetics and Society.
Sulston was one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project, the international effort to map out the entire human genetic blueprint. He helped to ensure that data from the project would remain freely available to all scientists.
The lecture takes place at 7.30pm on Thursday, October 19th in the Burke Theatre, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin.