Celebrating a Successful Science in Health Public Lecture Series

This year’s Public Lecture Series ended on a high with a talk on 30 March 2017 from Professor Adam Balen from the Leeds Centre for Reproductive Medicine.

He spoke on “The Evolution of Reproductive Medicine: how far have we come in the treatment of infertility and how far should we go?”  Over 100 people attended the lecture, held in the Main Building of Cardiff University, comprising school sixth formers and the general public.

His talk illustrated the huge advances that have been made in the treatment of fertility and highlighted the growing issue of individuals encountering fertility problems when in their mid to late thirties. He also debated how far should these technologies be exploited to produce so-called “designer babies”.

He described how sex selection is now allowed for the prevention of inherited sex-linked conditions, but not for social reasons.  However, regulations are not as stringent elsewhere so this has seen the emergence of “fertility tourism” from the UK to the US and some European countries.  This was a highly thought provoking topic and elicited a number of pertinent questions from the audience.

Comments received on this series of lectures included –

“an eye-opening initiative that actively engages the public, as well as students, in issues of huge importance”

“linked to the A-Level syllabus.  Nice to hear an expert explain and answer questions – very clear”

“Interesting, and useful in the sense that it tests my motivation for medicine”

“I would like to come to more on any topic as it has made me realise how many different specialities there are in medicine, and also research.  It has made me want to go into medicine even more than before”

“begins conversations among individuals in society about healthcare and promotes lifelong learning”

Dr James Matthews, who coordinates the lecture series, commented that this series of lectures had been particularly outstanding – with a mix of internal Cardiff University speakers including Professor Duncan Baird, Dr Matt Morgan and Dr Simone Cuff and external speakers, such as Professor Adam Balen and Dr Tom Fowler, from Genomics England.

We will be looking for speakers for the 2017-18 series so if you would like to give a public lecture, or have suggestions for speakers on topical areas of science and medicine, we would like to hear from you. Please contact the School of Medicine Engagement team:

For further details and to view the live recordings from this series of lectures visit the Public Understanding of Science in Health webpages.